Transcendence
by Cloudarion
Summary: We don't get to choose where our story begins, where it takes us, and most certainly where it ends. The Reaper War may have ended twenty-five years ago, but aboard the SSV Hippocrates, flagship of the Systems Alliance Research and Development Division, a Spectre takes his first steps on a journey that will decide the fate of a trillion souls.
1. Chapter 1 - Do No Harm

**Chapter 1: Do No Harm**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1704 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Containment Airlock 2_

 _4 Minutes after Outbreak_

With one last burst of speed I hurled myself through the airlock doors just before they slammed shut, landing hard on my side. Hands—warm and mercifully, blessedly human—pulled me up from the cold, poly-steel ground.

I staggered up onto my feet, heart threatening to tear its way out of my chest. My lungs heaved as I forced them to draw in breath after shaky breath. The hands belonged to Sarah, thank god. They were human hands—human fucking hands.

"Paul?" she asked fearfully.

I stared into her eyes and slowly shook my head. Letting go of my arm, she crumpled to the ground and let out a wracking sob. I knelt down and put my arm around her shoulder, wincing in pain as the scratches rasped against her labcoat.

"Were there any survivors, sir?" I looked up to see Rake and Jay. They were armored in full kit, full-faced helmets on, with their Lancers pointed at the containment airlock door behind me. A few meters back stood Fly and Soph, their Lancers aimed down the corridor beyond us.

"I'm not sure."

I stood up and looked behind me at the containment airlock. "Doctors Singh, Messner and Landry were directly at ground zero, as were about a dozen lab technicians. The rest of the Lab workers may have been far enough to have had a decent head start."

At the mention of Paul, Sarah let out another sob and wrapped her arms tighter across her knees. Now was not the time to freeze up, not when there were potentially billions of lives hanging in the balance.

I bottled up that fear and uncertainty for the shitstorm that I knew would come and took five seconds to calm myself down.

"Containment Airlocks 1 and 3 were also on the first level of the lab, there is a possibility that the majority of the lab workers got out there," Soph interjected. "I've been trying to raise the fireteams at the other Containment Airlocks but I'm getting nothing but static."

"Fuck," I cursed. "Assume containment has failed. We're scuttling the Hippocrates and abandoning ship".

Around me the marines nodded. Fly walked over and quickly injected me with a synthstim. I nodded in thanks. Immediately I felt a cold rush of relief as my heart distributed the cocktail of anesthetics and cell regenerators throughout my body. The pain of the scratches began to dissipate. I knelt back down where Sarah still lay.

"Sarah, I need you to get up," I said, gently but firmly.

She looked at me with tear-stained eyes, lips trembling. "We have to follow containment breach protocol. We need to destroy this ship and retrieve a copy of all the existing data on Project Prometheus. It might be the only thing that'll save us if these things manage to find a way off the ship." She nodded and her sobs began to cease. Jay gently helped her to her feet.

"Whats the plan, sir?" Rake asked.

I held out my hand and Rake pressed a spare Predator into my palm. I checked the magazine and quietly cursed at my lack of armor.

Venomously suppressing the growing fear in my chest, I spoke as confidently as I could. "We have two main objectives. The first main objective will be the retrieval of the Prometheus Data from the archives up on Deck 7. The second main objective will be the activation of the Hippocrates' self-destruct sequence up on the bridge. Secondary objectives will occur after the main objectives have been achieved and will include re-integration with surviving ship forces and extraction. Captain Farragut and the rest of the command crew will likely be holed up on the Bridge, it's the most defendable part of the ship"

"What about survivors?" asked Jay, "Will we be conducting any Search and Rescue?"

I took a second to consider the situation. It would take a ship as big as the Hippocrates some time to be fully compromised. Regardless, we had not received any incoming transmissions, crew-to-crew, or ship-wide alerts in the last 6 minutes, which meant that either communications were nixed or that there was no one left to send them. The second option was highly unlikely with over 1000 people on board, while the first option puzzled me. They wouldn't have tried to take down our communications. If anything, they'd leave them up, broadcast a distress signal to try and lure in more ships.

"Our main priority cannot be to rescue survivors, Jay," I emphatically stated. There had been a total of one hundred and seventeen lab workers, scientists, and support staff working on the Prometheus project. I had personally witnessed 3 of them being… changed. The rest I didn't want to think about. "We need to stick to established protocol or we might be dealing with a lot more deaths on our hands".

He nodded morosely and rigidly shouldered his Lancer. We started to hear loud bangs and muffled voices from the other side of the airlock, causing Sarah to shudder. Rake and Fly both turned their Lancers toward the door.

"Only four scientists have the implants for direct access to the complete Promethean Data from the archives," I continued, "three of them are KIA."

I checked the heatsink on the M-3 Predator Rake had handed me. "The Captain won't initiate the self-destruct sequence until that Data has been secured and moved to a safe location. We're going to escort Dr. Messner to the archives, retrieve that data, scuttle the ship, and grab a ride back to the Excalibur. Questions?"

The marines shook their heads. Shit was fucking going south at an alarming rate. Unexplained variables ate at my mind, the foremost being what happened to our communications. They had gone down maybe less than 5 minutes after the outbreak began. I pushed that issue to the back of my mind. The Hippocrates had an incredibly complex communications suite that would require expertise and tools that my team and I did not currently have. I had to focus on what I could and had to accomplish.

"Alright button up your shit because we're moving out. The archives are approximately 312 meters away and 6 decks up." At my prompting, the marine began double-checking each other's armor and weapons. Soph, any word from operatives Percival or Kitiarian?" I asked.

Soph looked up from her omni-tool and shook her head. "Negative Sir. I've also been trying to get a comm. link through to the Jaegers on the Excalibur but so far I'm getting nothing."

"Good work. If you manage to get a call through to them, advise them that we're enacting containment breach protocols. Tell them to keep minimum safe distance and to refrain from opening any and all life pods that they may pick up until they have been properly vetted. They should know better, but a reminder never hurts"

The banging behind us grew louder. I couldn't tell if the groans were human or if they were… them. I could hear Jays gloves tighten around the barrel of his Lancer while Sarah had clasped her hand to her mouth. The situation was bad. While the airlock here had successfully been sealed off, we could not guarantee the same at the other two airlocks. Our inability to raise the other fireteams only worsened the odds of us not encountering trouble on our way to our objectives.

I looked at the faces around me. Jay was either praying or cursing under his breath while Sarah looked to be in near catatonic shock. Soph was tapping away at her omnitool trying to re-establish communications while Fly swept his Lancer back and forth down the corridor beyond us.

I had trained for this. I had to assume that the people around me were all the assets I had to complete the objectives. I had to assume that Percival and Kit were dead, that the whole ship was compromised and that everyone in this galaxy would die if I decided to stop here.

I flipped the safety off the Predator that Rake handed me. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, let's move," I ordered. "We don't know how long that door will hold."

"Damn sir," Rake laughed, "What is this, a video game?"

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1712 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 3A_

 _12 Minutes after Outbreak_

I ordered the marines into a diamond formation with Sarah at the center. Access to the Prometheus Data in the Data Archives would require not only the codes but also the neural implants active in a living, breathing scientist. Some cynical R and D coat must have at some point in time decided that it was just too easy to torture a scientist for the codes, murder them, and then rip the implants out.

Not that I would know firsthand, I'm just making assumptions.

With the other three head scientists dead, we needed Sarah alive. And that complicated things. I mentally reviewed her CV in my head. Undergraduate and Masters at the University of Terra on Bekenstein from 2200-2206, Ph.D degree in Xenoscience Technology from the Everest Institute of Technology on Eden Prime in 2209, married the unfortunate Dr. Paul Messner that same year, and had been with the Systems Alliance Research and Development Section ever since. Slim, attractive, probably had never fired a gun in her life. She'd be one more snag in a situation full of deadly, sci-fi horror clichés.

The corridors were eerily silent the further and further we moved away from the airlock. In contrast to the mainline ships in the Systems Alliance Navy, space was not a premium on the SSV Hippocrates. Designed in 2200 and fully constructed in 2204, the SSV Hippocrates was the one-point-two kilometer-long mobile headquarters for the Systems Alliance Research and Development.

More akin to a giant, floating hospital than a warship, the Hippocrates was filled with long corridors, branching rooms, and large, equipment-filled spaces where the various research departments conducted most of their work.

Every time we passed by a room I would signal Rake to perform a quick, cursory check for survivors or useful kit, afterwards I'd seal it so that nothing could ambush us from the rear. At intersections I'd have Soph drop a DNA-triggered proximity mine that would erupt if anything that didn't possess the DNA of a council species walked near it. Otherwise we ran into no survivors. Not surprising.

"You'd think there'd be more people around, panicking." Jay said.

"Negative," I admonished. "Approximately 1053 people on the ship. 120 of those are security personnel, 34 are bridge crew, a third are maintenance, and other than the one-hundred odd personnel assigned to the Prometheus Project who should have been on the Science Deck, the rest are probably in their respective labs."

Rake turned to me. "Any other R and D projects we should worry about, sir?"

"Zombies", I joked weakly. To Rake's left I heard Fly let out a snort. Maybe he was just being nice, maybe his sense of humor was shit. Either way, I appreciated the recognition.

But my crappy attempts to diffuse tension were as I said, crappy. Sarah had gone quiet, hadn't spoken a word since she'd learned of her husbands' grisly fate.

Soph was still trying to re-establish communications with the rest of the Hippocrates in-between her periodic perimeter sweeps while Fly and Jay were otherwise silent and focused on ensuring that our six was cleared. Very professional. The marines I picked from the Excalibur's compliment were definitely the most professional of the bunch.

I could tell the lack of sounds and the lack of hostiles were not exactly comforting, but rather grating, on the nerves of my team. I brought my fingers up to my amp. I could feel the eezo charge that emanated from it. The L7 amp was in working order, as was the Barrier I was currently having it project around me.

I doubled checked my M-3 Predator Heavy Pistol, ensuring that the heat sink was properly loaded and free of flaws. I'd get 12 rounds before it had to recharge, with maybe six reloads left in the ammunition block.

I fell a few steps behind Rake and Soph. Despite the pervasive uneasiness gripping the marines, I knew that each of them had their shit buttoned up and wouldn't break when we encountered whatever those things were. As the operative in charge of this fiasco, it was up to me to shore up our weak points. I fell a few steps back to walk beside Sarah.

"How are you holding up?" I softly asked.

"I'll make it, thanks," she replied firmly. While a part of me admired the brave front she'd put on, I knew that deep down she had to be ten times as scared shitless as the rest of us were. Zero military training, cushy lab job, I could probably count the number of times she'd been in life and death situations on my third hand and I most certainly did not have a third hand.

Nonetheless, she seemed amiable to my attempts at conversation, if only to distract herself from the smothering silence that seemed to blanket the corridors of the Hippocrates.

"So what did you do before all this? C-Sec? Systems Alliance Marine Corps? N7?" she asked.

"Nah, nothing like that, and operative Percival was the N7," I replied. She cocked her head at me in disbelief.

"You're not ex-military?" she probed further. "Hard to believe, you certainly seem like the type."

"He's not ex-military, at least, we don't think he is," Rake interjected. "We've served with him aboard the Excalibur for the last six months and he's been pretty tight-lipped about his life story."

"Pretty much your typical Spectre operative," grinned Soph.

"Very mysterious," smiled Sarah. That was good. If she could smile then maybe the trauma of losing her husband and our current situation might not be overly debilitating.

"Cultivating an aura of intense mystique to establish and reinforce authority," Fly stated in a flat, monotone voice. "Spectre 101."

Sarah laughed at that, Jay shook his head but I'd bet he was smiling underneath his helmet.

The tension dropped noticeably after that. That was good. As well-trained as these Systems Alliance marines were, our current situation would render even an experienced Spectre operative a little trigger-happy. With neither Sarah nor I possessing protective armor suits or kinetic barriers a little tension relief could go a long way towards me not getting shot in the ass.

I checked the ship schematic on my omni-tool. 276 meters and 6 decks up to go. Although we had not yet encountered anything or anyone, something felt wrong. I could feel it gnawing at me, although maybe not in small, little bites but rather in large, ravenous chunks.

My head was on a swivel, my eyes constantly darting back and forth, up and down. I could swear that I heard something faintly scratching from somewhere nearby, and a soft, almost indiscernible chittering that seemed to come from all directions at once.

I didn't know whether or not the Marines heard it but I refrained from asking in case it caused Sarah to lose her composure. The marines would be expecting hostile resistance anyways, no need to make the situation any more volatile.

Apparently they did, because Jay eventually spoke up.

"Sir, do you hear that?"

The ship suddenly groaned and all of a sudden the lights in the corridor flickered and went dead.

I immediately kicked Sarah's legs out from underneath her, causing her to elicit a yelp of surprise. I then expanded my barrier to encase the entire marine fireteam. I fanned my pistol down both ends of the corridor while I used my other hand to press Sarah firmly down. The marines, to their credit, activated their Lancer rifle lamps and immediately trained their rifles behind and in front of us.

I could feel Sarah tense up beneath me in preparation to scream. I quickly moved my hand from her shoulder and pressed it against her mouth. All around me the marines trained their rifles down either ends of the corridor. The chittering had stopped, nothing but deep, heavy breathing from the marines and muffled, panicked breaths from Sarah. She grabbed onto my legs and squeezed.

We stood there, silent, for what felt like an eternity. After about 30 seconds, we relaxed. Nothing had attacked us, but the lights were still not on.

"I'm betting something must have happened to the generator, a lot of the local power readings are showing up dead on my omni-tool, sir." Soph quickly tapped a few more commands into her omni-tool,

"I'll need to find one of the main access consoles on this deck to get a better picture, those should still be running on their own internal power."

"The back-up generators should have kicked in by now," Fly frowned. "They're located in separate rooms specifically so that direct damage to either of them wouldn't cause a catastrophic loss of power throughout the whole ship".

I nodded. "I'm starting to think its sabotage. First communications, then power, someone had to have hit the back-up generators first and then the main generators."

I pulled Sarah up from the ground. "The generators are 100 meters and 2 decks apart, we might be looking at more than one saboteur."

"Sir, what about the main objective? Can we still access the Data Archives while the power is down?" Rake asked.

I shook my head. "As far as I remember, the Data Archives has a fail-safe lock that would have activated as soon as the power went down, were probably going to need to turn the generators in one of the engine rooms back on first."

"I'm also starting to read marginally lower oxygen levels in our surrounding environment, I think life support is down as well," Soph reported.

"So someone cuts off our communications, then they shut down our generators, and now they want to asphyxiate us," Jay listed. "Try to make it less obvious man."

"Life support can take a backseat on the priority list," I assured him.

I checked my omni-tool for the current oxygen readings. "Assuming a crew of around 1000 remains, we'd have enough oxygen for another 6 hours before we start feeling the effects."

I pulled up a schematic of the ship, studying it. "Now might be a good time to consider fixing communications. All of the sabotage seems to be aimed towards eliminating the inhabitants on the ship, it's logical to assume that the lifeboats would be their next objective. If that's the case, we're going to need communications to call for evac and extraction."

"Working on it sir, from what I can see from my omni-tool diagnostics, communications aren't down but jammed." She typed a few commands. "With some luck I might be able to re-establish short-range communications between helmets and portable comms, maybe a 50 yard radius."

"Good work," I nodded. Nothing had attacked us for 2 straight minutes. "We should keep moving, everyone turn your external lamps on."

The chittering had stopped for now. The lights allowed us to see maybe fifteen meters in either direction, but no more than that. I had dropped my expanded barrier, robbing us of its soft, purple glow. I did not want to waste my energy when all the signs screamed that I'd need it for later.

The air around us felt heavy, like a thick, wet blanket. Sarah had stopped hyperventilating, but she maintained a tight grip around my arm. Slowly, we continued our journey down the corridor.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1726 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Containment Airlock 1_

 _26 minutes after the outbreak_

I think I was the first to smell it. I'd been in enough warzones and had kept enough of an eye on the ship schematics to know what large amounts of blood smelled like and to know that we were slowly approaching Containment Airlock 1.

Beside me, Sarah wrinkled her nose, unsure of what the smell was. I transferred my Predator to my right hand to free up my left for the hand gestures I'd need to access my biotics. There were no more intersections or rooms between our current position and Containment Airlock 2, so I gestured for Soph to drop two more proximity mines behind us and had all the marines train their rifles down ahead of us.

Compared to the containment airlock I had come through, Containment Airlock 1 was a relatively large room, almost 30 by 40 meters. It possessed five large doors, I cursed as I noticed that all of them were left wide open.

The largest doors were the airlock doors themselves, leading to the Prometheus Lab. The next led to Containment Airlock 3, another was the one we had just came through, a fourth led to the Data Archives, and the last led to the ships' Main Central Passageway. In the darkness I could see the outlines of the security booth flanking the lab entrance, a few storage lockers, and a couple of single-occupant decontamination suites.

And bodies.

We cautiously stepped into the room, each of the marines and I covering one of the entrances into the airlock. The beams of light emitted from the Marine's rifle lamps swept across the room, gracing us with brief glimpses of the bloody carnage that lay strewn about. The walls were drenched in a mixture of blue, green, and red blood. I could hear blood dripping into the mesh grating built into the floor of the room.

Sarah moved closer and grabbed my arm. "Oh my god," she whispered hoarsely. I trained my flashlight on the corpse of a turian security personnel slumped in-front of one of the security booth.

"I..I recognize him.. I think his name was Grolina," Sarah stuttered.

"Grelinus," I corrected, reading the name inscribed on his chestplate. I walked closer to get a better look. Behind me I could hear Sarah retching. I knelt down to examine the casualty. His chestplate was pierced front-to-back —a bloody hole with a diameter of maybe ten inches if I had to say. His left leg was missing below the knee, his mandibles flared open in a silent scream. An M-8 Avenger Assault Rifle lay beside him.

"What the fuck could have made that hole, sir?" Jay asked. He was starting to get unnerved. The rest of the team were also starting to crack, I noted. While their Lancers were kept firmly aimed at the doors their helmets jerked from side to side, maintaining as much of a visual on the room as possible.

"I don't know. Too much tissue trauma for it to be a large-caliber weapon, and the wounds don't match the capabilities of those things I saw at ground zero of the outbreak."

I gestured to Fly, "Come over here Fly, what do you see?"

Fly moved towards the corpse while I trained my Predator at the door he was covering.

He quietly inspected the body. "You're right, the entry wound is way too large for it to be a mass effect slug, even a modded one. The arteries and muscle tissue are shredded, not simply pushed aside. The wound must have been caused by something serrated, not smooth".

I nodded. "No heat scarring on the edges of the wound and on the armor either. I think we can also rule out heat-based beam weaponry," I finished. "Rake, do a brief check on the other KIA's."

Rake moved towards each of other corpses in the room. "They're all turians, sir, members of fireteam 2-1." He knelt down to get a closer look, his Lancer propped up on one shoulder. "Wounds similar to the ones you're describing. Large-bore entry wounds in the stomach, thighs, and… face."

"Poor bastards," Jay lamented. He nudged a spent heatsink beside one of the bodies. "At least they put up a fight."

I frowned. That didn't make sense. "There's human and salarian blood too present in the room, but only turian KIA's."

Sarah turned to me. "Could they have just been wounded?" she asked.

I sincerely doubted it given the quantity of blood coating the floor and the walls but I reassured her that it was still possible. As on edge as the marines were, she was probably close to the precipice of absolute panic.

"Sir, there's a main access console in the security booth, permission to try and re-establish comms?" Soph asked.

"Do it," I ordered. "And try to get us a diagnostic on the generators and on life support."

"Roger that, sir." She saluted.

She set her Lancer down where she could easily grab it, linked up her omni-tool to the main access console and began working.

I ordered the rest of the marines to form a perimeter, ensuring that the airlock door leading to the science lab was vigilantly watched. Rake began moving the bodies off to the side so they wouldn't be a walking hazard and began stripping them of any useful gear.

Rake handed me a utility belt with a couple of sticky grenades and a few synthstim packs attached to them. "These might be useful, sir," he replied.

I thanked him and clipped it around my waist. From the dead turians I appropriated two Talons – 8 inch-long standard issue combat knives issued to turian recruits upon the completion of their military training, curved like a raptor's talon, edged for both stabbing and slicing.

Upon further inspection, one of them had a name carved into the handle. I gently placed that one back onto the belt of its owner and grabbed an unmarked one off another of the bodies. I stuck those into my belt.

Jay came out of the security booth with a suit of dark grey armor worn by the ship's security personnel. It was bulky and heavy—much heavier than I was used—but it had kinetic barriers. Produced by Devlon Industries, it was both heavier and offered less protection than the standard marine combat armor produced by Hahne-Kedar that Rake and his team wore, and much shittier than my custom Ariake Technologies Armor. Worst, it lacked the built-in Tactical Cloak that I had on my personal suit.

I quickly stripped down and began putting on the armor. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Sarah watching furtively for a few seconds before averting her eyes.

The armor was comprised of a black undersuit made with a tough titanium microweave upon which you could clip on the modular armor pieces. I attached the heavy cuirass to my torso as well as the armored greaves and boots but I refrained from wearing the heavy pauldrons or the armguards, leaving my bare arms exposed. This would allow my arms more mobility in the use of my biotics and in aiming.

I was in the middle of triple-checking my M-3 Predator when I suddenly heard footsteps coming from one of the entrances. I immediately moved in front of Sarah and trained my pistol down that corridor. The marines picked up on my movements and in less than a second four more weapons were pointed at where I was aiming, bathing the entrance that led to Containment Airlock 3 in bright, white light.

"Friendlies!" shouted a flanged, turian voice. A couple seconds later a group of ten people filed cautiously into the room. Eight of them were clad in the armor of the Hippocrates' Security Personnel, a ninth was a salarian garbed in a Scientists uniform, a patch on his left shoulder marking him as part of the Hippocrates' Biology Research Division. The last was an asari with purple facial markings. Her patch listed her as a member of the Medical Research Division.

Four of the security personnel were turians while the other four were humans. They gripped their Avengers tightly, nervously eyeing the broad swaths of blood on the walls and the ground and shooting brief, furtive glances at the row of corpses we had set aside.

A large, imposing turian with a bent mandible and dark red face paint strode forward. His armor insignia marked him as a Sergeant in the Turian Hierarchy Naval Marines.

"Sir, Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus, of the THNM, currently in command of fireteam 2-2 aboard the SSV Hippocrates. Are you one of the Spectres' the Council sent?"

I nodded. "Give me a situation report, Sergeant Mardinus."

The turian straightened up. "Corporal O'Neill, have two men guard each entrance and secure the perimeter," he ordered. A short, Caucasian male of about 5'9 saluted and proceeded to direct the rest of the security personnel. Satisfied that the perimeter was relatively secured, Sergeant Mardinus turned to me and began his report.

"We heard the alarms start up and the Containment Airlocks doors started to close." He began. "We received a message from the bridge stating that a Code Black had occurred in the Prometheus Lab and to await further instructions, we lost communications soon after."

He glanced backwards and nodded towards the two scientists. "These two came running down to the airlock."

The asari scientist took another look at the blood-spattered walls and shuddered. The salarian scientist stepped forward and held out a hand. "Dr. Jaelen Veers, SSV Hippocrates' Biology Research Division, Chief Scientist for Project Eden," like all salarians, he spoke rapidly, "This is my colleague Dr. Rentea T'lana, SSV Hippocrates Medical Research Division."

His words began to betray a note of panic. "You were the Spectre attached to oversee the Prometheus Project were you not? You were at ground zero, did you see a salarian scientist? Grey, dark blue irises, two rings on the left horn?"

He made to grab my shoulder but I slipped away. "His name was Tago, Dr. Tago Veers, did he get out? Did you see him get out? He's my brother," he pleaded. The asari beside him pulled his arm away from me and entwined her fingers with his, her eyes filling with sorrow.

I kept my face as carefully composed as possible. "I'm sorry Dr. Veers, if your brother was in the Lab at the time of the outbreak and you didn't catch him outside Airlock 2 then chances are he didn't make it. I'm sorry for your loss."

He gaped at me, silent and wordless, a rare feat for any salarian. Fuck, I hated doing shit like this to people.

"I know this must be hard," I continued, "but there will be time to mourn him later. We need to follow containment protocol, and that means we need to secure the data from the archives and destroy the ship. I'm going to need your help to do so."

Dr. Veers nodded slowly and moved away. The asari glared at me before following him. Jay shot a furtive glance towards me and moved over to the grieving scientist, offering him a drink and a protein bar. I sighed and shook my head.

Sergeant Mardinus had been watching our conversation silently and patiently. After Dr. Veers moved away, he resumed his report.

"After the lights went off, we decided to move towards Containment Airlock 1 to try and link up with Fireteam 1-1. Looks like you found them, poor bastards," he gestured sadly at the row of bodies. He turned his attention back to me, "What about fireteam 1-3?"

I shook my head. He went quiet for a minute, closing his eyes before straightening back up and saluting. I had always admired turians and their commitment to duty. This turian had clearly had friends on both fireteams and in spite of their loss maintained an air of professionalism and duty that was on par with even the most stoic of Spectre operatives. I would need to lean on him if I was to get everyone out of this shitshow alive.

"You mentioned containment protocol, sir?" he inquired further.

I nodded an affirmative and outlined the plan for him. "Protocol dictates the retrieval of the Prometheus Data from the Data Archives."

I gestured to Sarah, "Dr. Messner is the last remaining scientist with the access codes and the neural implants required to retrieve that data, that makes her safety top priority."

The turian looked at Sarah, his mandibles twitched as they appraised her and made note of her lack of armor and combat experience.

"After the data has been secured," I continued, "We're going to the bridge to activate the self-destruct sequence, upon the completion of which we will evacuate via the lifeboats to the SSV Excalibur."

"Sounds good sir, we've got your back," Sergeant Mardinus acknowledged. "Any idea how we can re-establish communications with the bridge?"

I nodded behind me to where Soph was still working at the main access console. "I've got Specialist Croft working on that problem."

Soph chose that minute to look up from the console. "Sir, in regards to that problem I may have found a temporary solution."

She looked down and tapped a few more lines. "I wasn't able to remove the jamming signal. It may be an external signal or could possibly be originating from somewhere on the ship. I was, however, able to establish a separate channel free from the signal. I'm sending the channel codes now." Everyone's omni-tool lit up as Soph linked us to the channel.

"Unfortunately there's two problems," she continued, "first of all the channel has extremely limited range. We can communicate helmet to helmet about fifty yards away, but nothing exceeding that. Secondly, I couldn't encrypt the channel. Surviving ship forces will have access to it, but also potentially the saboteurs. I'd advise against sending out sensitive information over the channel," She explained.

"Any chance we could contact the Excalibur?" I asked.

"50 yards away, sir."

I smiled and Rake shot her a 'Good Job'. We now had twelve armed combatants, thirteen counting myself. The asari would possess biotics—I made a mental note to ask her for her specialties—while I could count on the salarian to have some background in both offensive and defensive tech. We prepared to move out from the Airlock through the entrance that would lead to the Data Archives.

A loud moan coming from beyond the open doors leading down to the science lab caused all of us to stop dead in our tracks. We all bunched up in the center of the room. I immediately forced Sarah down again, aimed my Predator towards the sound and prepared to throw up a barrier.

The lights from a dozen rifle tac-lamps all converged on the entryway, but all of them failed to illuminate more than fifteen, maybe twenty meters into the darkness. I noticed the flares on the belt of Corporal O'Neill and made a dimming gesture to Sergeant Mardinus.

He nodded and rasped a brief command into his armor mic. His fireteam turned off their lamps. The marines picked up on what they were doing and shut theirs off too, engulfing us in darkness. All three of the scientists were breathing heavily in fear, but both Dr. Veers and Sarah remained thankfully silent, while I could see Dr. T'lana start to emit a low blue glow in preparation to use her biotics.

I holstered my Predator and grabbed the flares off of the Corporals belt and activated them. I tossed them one at a time, one for each of the five entrances to the airlock. They began to emit a soft red light that illuminated the room in its entirety, giving us a complete visual of the entire room.

"What is that?" Sarah pointed. Out of the darkness of the Prometheus Lab shambled something straight out of our nightmares. It was—used —to be a human. Its tattered lab coat was covered in dried red and blue blood.

His flesh seemed half machine, I could see sharp metal spikes jutting from his back. His skin, once black, was now interspersed with metallic patches of blue wiring and open wounds that bled a mixture of sickly blue fluid and bright red blood.

His eyes were gone, replaced by dead metal prosthetics that emitted an angry red light. A series of large metal talons about a foot and a half long erupted from its right forearm. His stomach was bloated and seemed paper thin, a dull blue light emanating from inside it. I could see his stomach shifting and convulsing as if it were alive. I had never seen anything like this, not even from pictures of the Reaper War

It opened its mouth wider than I thought possible, ripping open the human flesh that remained around its jaws. Inside I could see more blue light, illuminating the sharp, jagged mixture of metal and human teeth that lined the inside of its mouth.

It let out a ghastly howl and ran at us. I was the first to react, having seen these things at ground zero. I pumped two shots into its chest, right where the human heart would be. It dropped and fell to the ground without a sound. All around me the marines and the scientists let out a collective sigh of relief. I turned to check on Sarah while Cadmus motioned to one of his men to confirm the kill.

The man decided to walk over and moved to prod it with his boot instead of shooting it in the head. Fucking idiot. Before I could yell at him to back away, the Corpser raised its arm filled with metal talons and drove it into the thigh of the unfortunate marine, coating the face of the Corpser in a spray of arterial blood.

The marine fell to the ground and began to scream. The Corpser quickly crawled on-top of him, it's gaping maw inches from the marines face. I winced, expecting it to take a big chunk out of him.

Instead, the Corpsers thin, bloated stomach, which had been emitting a ghostly, blue light, suddenly ripped apart. Guts and innards spilled out onto the pinned marine alongside half a dozen hand-sized objects.

Bathed in the red light of the flares, I could barely make out their shape. They were like hand-sized, mechanical tarantulas, each of them a made nearly entirely of metal. They erupted from the stomach of the Corpser and scuttled their way up the torso of its victim. A pair of them held the marines mouth open while the rest crawled inside. After a few more seconds, the marines cries stopped and his struggling ceased.

The whole nightmare had lasted maybe seven or eight seconds at most. The death of the marine snapped me out of my state of shock. I raised my Predator and shot the Corpser two more times in the head, hopefully destroying its brain. The Corpser slumped over the body of the dead marine, the blue and red lights emitting from its various orifices finally ceased.

More moans—more than I could count—began coming from the science lab. Out of the darkness and bathed in the light of the flares came another Corpser, then another. Two became a dozen, a dozen became twenty, with what seemed like more on the way. I could hear Jay muttering a quick prayer behind me, while Sergeant Mardinus began slowly chanting in turian.

The dead marine suddenly began convulsing. I immediately set my omni-tool to record. The marine began emitting a faint blue light from various parts of his body. Parts of his skin started sloughing off, revealing cold blue metal beneath. Jagged metal talons tore their way out of his arm, while large metal spikes erupted from his spine.

Finally, his eyes snapped open, revealing angry red orbs. He rose to join the horde of Corpsers. This was not how I saw these things being made back at ground zero. I recorded the whole process and prayed to god that I'd be able to deliver this to proper authorities.

"Headshots!" I shouted. I made a flourishing gesture with my left hand. My biotic amp at the base of my skull sizzled to life. A dark purple energy sphere with a shimmering violet corona erupted from my left hand and shot towards the front ranks of the Corpsers, its mass-reducing effect lifting three of them off their feet and causing them to float and swirl helplessly in the air.

I took aim and shot all three in the head before throwing my left fist forward like I was throwing a punch. My biotic amp sparked again and out from my left hand shot a bright blue orb of energy that collided with the swirling purple sphere.

The mass effect fields from each of my biotic abilities interacted violently with each other, producing a large biotic detonation. This flung the three Corpsers I had initially snared into several of their brethren, disrupting their front lines and buying us a moment of respite.

The remaining Corpsers began to charge at us. Rake was the first to open fire, spraying the legs of the first wave with his M-7 Lancer and causing several of them to tumble. Beside him, Soph and Fly began firing bursts into the heads of the downed Corpsers while Jay tossed a grenade that ripped two of them apart and wounded several more. Sergeant Mardinus and his men began firing indiscriminately into the crowd, buying us time to coordinate an effective counterattack.

I saw Dr. T'lana throw out her right arm, a blue orb of energy similar to the one that I had cast shooting out and hitting an approaching target. The Corpser started to howl it was covered in what looked like bright blue flames that began disintegrating its torso. Dr. Jeers activated his omnitool and threw out a scorching ball of fire that collided with the Corpser that Dr. T'lana had hit, causing a power detonation that tore it and another Corpser standing nearby apart.

For a minute, it looked like we might survive when suddenly a swarm of the mechanical spider creatures erupted from the stomachs of the Corpsers we had shot. I cursed and made a hand gesture towards Jay to begin firing on them but before we could shoot all of them they had already crawled up onto two of Sergeant Mardinus' men. The two turians began screaming as they began crawling into their mouths. A third marine began running towards his friends, trying to pull the Crawlers off of them, but a Corpser drove its spiked arm into her chest.

Rake and his fireteam continued hammering into the remaining Corpsers. I threw out another singularity and warp biotic combo that detonated and destroyed a few more. Sarah, bless her heart, had grabbed a pistol from Jay's belt and had begun doing her best to shoot the legs out from the Corpsers.

But more and more came out of the science lab. For every lethal, human-cyborg zombie we put down, another seemed to come out of place. The light from the flares coating the bodies and the spent heat sinks in dim, red light.

Then out of the darkness came Dr. Rabhu Singh, one of the former lead scientists for the Prometheus Project.

Except it wasn't Dr. Singh, not anymore. While similar to the Corpsers, he was bigger. Almost three feet taller and twice as wide, with more wicked-looking spikes on his forearm and thick metal plates covering his torso and head. What had been Dr. Singh also possessed an over-sized synthetic arm covered in long, sinister metal tubes. Unlike the Corpsers, he was quiet, advancing slowly towards us while its smaller brethren surged forward in an attempt to tear us all to shreds.

I immediately shifted my fire to what had been Dr. Singh but my bullets failed to penetrate the plates covering its head. Soph, Jay and Rake all shifted fire to the doctor while Sergeant Mardinus and his men tossed a few more grenades in an attempt to buy us some breathing room from the Corpsers. Their Lancer fire also failed to penetrate the thick plates that covered Dr. Singh.

One of the security personnel let out an angry shout and charged towards the hulking monstrosity, screaming curses and firing his rifle.

"Keep away from his arm!" I screamed, but before the marine could halt his suicidal charge, Dr. Singh lashed out with his hand and the tubes on his arm entered the chest of the marine.

The marine stopped and began shaking. Unlike the short latency period that followed being infected from the Crawlers, he immediately began changing, patches of metal appearing where his flesh fell away, eyes red, teeth-ridden maw gaping wide in a ghastly howl. Dr. Singh released the newly-formed Corpser, who turned and began to run at us.

I pumped three bullets into the head of the ex-marine and was preparing to once again utilize my biotics when my comm. set crackled to life.

" _Friendly, coming up on the enemy's six, watch your fire,"_ ordered the voice of one of my two best friends in this shit-stain of a galaxy.

A large, armored shape came running out of the darkness of the Science Lab. His armor was black, with a red stripe running down his right arm.

On top of his armor he had activated his signature bright gold tech armor that served as added protection. I saw him drop two inferno grenades that incinerated half a dozen Corpsers and brightly illuminated the room, giving the rest of us dirty peasants a clear view of his little stunt.

Former N7 and Spectre Operative Lancelot Percival sprinted straight towards Dr. Singh. He leapt up and grabbed onto the Changers' metal spines with his free hand while his other ignited his omni-blade and drove it deep into the neck of the former scientist.

For the first time this fight, Dr. Singh began to howl in pain. I was not to be undone. As Dr. Singh raised his cable arm in an attempt to change Percival, I made a closing-fist gesture with my left hand. A white blue field erupted around Dr. Singh, immobilizing him.

I sprinted forward and jumped up onto Dr. Singh as Percival had done, using the metal plates around his legs and torso as purchase. I jammed my predator underneath his unarmored chin and emptied the rest of the clip into his head. With a shudder, Dr. Singh toppled over and grew still, his lights flickering off. As it died, the rest of my marines and the surviving ship crew finished off the last Corpser, and the room fell silent.

I held out a hand and pulled Percival to his feet.

"Counts as mine," I grinned.

He shook his head and depolarized his faceplate. I could see him smiling up at me. He pulled me into a bear hug.

"Thought you were dead," he said. "I can't believe you made it out of the labs"

"What, you doubted me?" I aimed a kick at the head of what used to be Dr. Singh. Unlike the first marine who'd died, I trusted my plot armor to keep me from the same, gruesome fate. "Better question is, what the hell were you doing in the Labs?"

Percival looked hurt, "I went to get you the fuck out! I had to literally cut my way into the lab with my goddamn omni-blade. Then the lights went out and I had to fight my way through a bunch of those things. Heard the gunfire, figured you were somehow involved in that, and here I am," he finished.

"Yeah, well you're fucking late," I sniped. "Where's my armor?"

"Cade grabbed it before he ran off. No idea where he headed, we lost communications soon after we split up. I'm willing to be he's either at the Data Archives or the Engine room."

"Shit," I cursed. I spent a few minutes bringing Percival up to speed.

He listened intently, going silent for a few moments after I had finished. "We need to get to the Data Archives then, which one's the VIP?" he asked.

I gestured at Sarah, who shyly introduced herself. Percival smiled reassuringly at her before nodding at the other two scientists.

"And them?" he asked.

"Doctors Veers and T'lana, Biology and Medical," I explained. "This is Sergeant Mardinus and his second-in-command, Corporal O'Neill," I pointed at what remained of Fireteam 1-3, which consisted of the grizzled turian marine, his second, and a young, scared-looking turian that looked barely out of basic.

"And you already know the marines from the Excalibur," I finished by gesturing at Rake and his team.

"Good to see you sir," Rake greeted. "I'm starting to like the odds now that you're here."

Percival nodded and raised his voice. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, we work together, we check our corners, and we all make it out of this alive."

I quietly refrained from rolling my eyes at his little speech, company morale and all.

"The Data Archives is a near straight shot through that door, so let's move out and get this done."

Standing at nearly 6'5 and 220 lbs, garbed in black N7 armor and made bigger by the addition of his tech armor. Lancelot Percival cut a heroic, larger-than-life figure. Absolute ruthless in a fight, with a combined ten years of N7 and Spectre experience under his belt, I had seen Percival charge headfirst into batarian slaving facilities and take on Krogan Warlords with nothing more than a pistol and a frying pan.

His bravery and his dedication to duty had catapulted him through the ranks of the Systems Alliance into the ranks of the N7 and later the Spectres. Combine that with model-good looks, deep blue eyes, and wavy, blonde hair, he was the poster child for the galaxies finest.

Of course, Percival had his weaknesses. The first was his stupid, pretentious name.

The second was his hearing. At least when compared to mine.

I heard that same scratching noise that had followed us throughout our journey from airlock 2. It was stronger now, and seemed to be coming from directly below us in the maintenance catwalks that ran below each deck. I turned to the rest of the group.

Although the rest of the marines seemed unaware, both the turians and the salarian, with their superior hearing, were now looking around, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise.

The metal polysteel deck that was nearly two feet thick ripped apart in the center of the room and out crawled a huge, metallic monster.

Nearly twelve meters long, it had the shape of a giant, metallic lizard, two strong hind legs and four smaller, thinner forelegs, each of them terminating in massive, metal claws. Like the other creatures, its flesh was a patchwork of metal plates and skin.

I could see that its body was made from a fusion of different species, like some dark twisted chimera. Each of its four forelimbs was what used to be a salarian that had been mechanically zombified much like how the Corpsers were. I noticed that the salarian that comprised of its right front-most leg had two rings embedded in its horn cartilage.

Fused human Corpsers made up the torso, while its head seemed to be comprised of a Krogan, a thick red headplate covering its forehead. In lieu of a gaping maw, the krogans arms had been transformed into two long pincers surrounding a small, human mouth.

A soft, chittering sound emitted from the beast. Coiling around it like a snake was a tail that was long and sinuous, made of jagged metal and flesh. It left no doubt in my mind what had killed the original fireteam posted here.

Corporal O'Neill was the closest to the beast. The chimera whipped its tail around and drove it straight into his chest, lifting him into the air and throwing him across the room. Then and there I decided that we couldn't kill it, not conventionally.

We all started retreating. I ripped a sticky grenade from my belt and chucked it at its head. The grenade detonated, blowing one of its pincers clean off. The Chimera chittered in rage, then turned its six mechanical eyes in my direction. It started moving towards me.

Rake ran in front of it, firing his Lancer and spitting hate at the monster. The Chimera raised one long forelimb and batted Rake aside. I raised my left hand to use my biotics to reduce his mass, hopefully alleviating the impact. Despite my efforts, Rake hit the side of the wall and slumped to the ground, unmoving.

"Fall back through the doors!" Percival bellowed. He grabbed Rake by the collar of his armor and started dragging him away. The Chimera jumped into our group, scattering and separating Sarah and I from the rest of the survivors. The marines and the scientists, along with Percival, retreated through the door that led to the ship's main corridor. I grabbed Sarah and dragged her through the door to the Data Archives.

The Chimera paused for a brief, critical moment, uncertain of who to follow. Percival and I both shot at the mechanical servos that held our respective doors open, and I'm guessing we both sighed with relief as our doors both slammed shut, separating us from the abomination of flesh and machine.

I looked at Sarah, who stared back at me.

We were alone.


	2. Chapter 2 - Everything has a Beginning

**Chapter 2: Everything has a Beginning**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1102 hours – Aboard the SSV Excalibur, Deck 2, Starboard Observation Deck_

 _5 hours, 58 minutes before Outbreak_

The SSV Excalibur lurched to a sudden halt as it exited out of the Mass Relay, forcing me to brace one hand against the observation port window. Outside, the snaky blue ribbons of light generated by the mass-effect fields that enabled faster-than-light relay travel slowly dissipated, revealing a backdrop of stars and the silhouette of a small, red dwarf.

" _Thrusters and navigation are green, internal emissions sink engaged. All systems are optimal. Drift… just under 1200K,"_ reported the ship's helm.

"Thank you, Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova," I spoke into my mic.

" _Please sir, call me Val, or Nova."_

"No, Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova,"

Behind me Cade laughed, while Percival shook his head with an amused grin on his face.

"Spirits, as much as I hate the competition, I do want to see you get laid in this lifetime," the turian chided.

I turned towards him and arched an eyebrow. "We're here on a classified tier 1 operation, and you want to treat it like some weekend bender on Omega?" I shook my head. "Besides, I get laid plenty. I'm more concerned about your overt interest in my sexual liasons, Kitiarian."

The turian behind me reclined back onto the observation deck couches, crossed his arms and shook his head. "Hey, I'm just trying to teach you a thing or two about your species' fairer sex."

Fair, silver-plated with deep blue clan markings and a black tattoo inked down his neck and shoulders, there was no doubt that Operative Cade Kitiarian was popular with the ladies of any species. Tall, lithe and muscular, even for a turian, Cade loved the ladies and the ladies loved him.

Combine that with his occupation as a Council Spectre and the deep, two-toned flanging voice that all turians possessed, Cade had a kill count well into his hundreds. In my opinion, Cade's parents must have spelt his name wrong on whatever passed for a turian birth certificate.

Unfortunately for the many ladies of the galaxy, Cade had a weakness for human females. His sexual proclivities were legendary among the Spectres, and downright disturbing compared to the average turian male. The only thing he loved more than human females was the specially-modified M-27 Black Widow sniper rifle that he had used throughout his entire career in the Turian Ghost Corps.

Cade turned on his comm. "Hey Val," he began. I rolled my eyes as I listened to him drop his flanging voice down to a rolling, attractive purr. I had heard him pull that move countless times in bars and clubs during our post-mission debriefs. "That's quite some flying you did there, I'll be sure to make a note of that in the mission report. Maybe you'd like to help me write that. Make sure I get all the details right."

" _Eat shit, operative Kitiarian. Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova logging out."_

Cade shook his head sadly. "Racist," he lamented.

Percival moved behind him and pulled on the back of his fringe. "She's not a racist, Cade. I'm pretty sure her last boyfriend was a turian stationed on Digeris. You're just an asshole."

Cade rubbed the back of his fringe and threw Percival a dirty look, "Careful, keep this up and you'll hurt my feelings, slaps."

"Don't call me slaps," Percival scowled.

I shot both of them a dirty look, making it clear how I felt about their immature bickering during a mission. At least Percival had the decency to look somewhat ashamed. This was an important mission, and for once I would like to carry out said mission without it feeling like the pilot episode of a bad bromance sitcom.

Cade pulled out his omni-tool and began reading the mission briefings that the Council had sent us. Percival walked up to me beside the observation port and let out a sigh. Although Percival was only three inches taller than me, his extra muscle mass made me look almost child-like in direct comparison. He placed a forearm against the viewport and rested his forehead against it, bringing us to about an even height.

"Sorry, I know you're worried," he turned to me. "Trust me, we know how important this mission is."

I looked out beyond the observation port, silent. I could see dozens, hundreds of stars, all of them tiny little pinpricks of light against a backdrop of unending darkness. Was there a spacial analogue of Thalassophobia? Astrophobia, maybe?

"We've worked together for more than five years now. You know Cade and I have got your back, and I know you've got ours," he continued. "As long as we're together, we're always going to make it home."

I scoffed. "Thanks for the motivational speech, slaps."

He rolled his eyes and turned his gaze back out towards the stars.

" _Operatives, we have a visual on the SSV Hippocrates. We'll be in shuttle range in ten,"_ reported Nova, rr Val, whatever.

Cade stood up from the couch and joined us at the viewport. Over the course of ten minutes we watched as the shape of the SSV Hippocrates grew larger and larger. It was large, much larger than an Alliance Dreadnought, almost as big as the asari's Destiny Ascension before it was decommissioned back in '02.

It was maybe 1200 meters long, about a quarter of that in width, and maybe 150 meters tall. It was ugly, not aerodynamic in the slightest, covered with dull grey metal plates and built like a floating hospital on its side.

I could see a multitude of lifeboat airlocks and dozens of Guardian point-defense lasers that covered every possible angle of approach. The Systems Alliance spared no expense at ensuring that the mobile commander center for the Systems Alliance Research and Development Department was well-protected from pirates, raiders, and mercenaries.

"Well boys, pack your kit. Let's go earn our pay," Percival deadpanned.

Cade and I laughed at that. We never tired of that inside joke.

You wouldn't get it unless you were a Spectre.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1136 hours – Aboard Hammerhead Dropship E-419, currently en-route to the SSV Hippocrates, Docking Bay 4-D_

 _5 hours, 24 Minutes before Outbreak_

Cade slid a clip of armor-piercing rounds into his M-6 Carnifex Pistol. I eyed it with some disdain. The Carnifex was chambered for a higher caliber round than most pistols and appropriately had a much higher stopping power, at the cost of a reduced clip size and slower fire rate.

Unlike the M-3 Predators I tended to favor, the M-6 Carnifex could tear an arm off a Vorcha maurauder, blow fist-sized holes in batarian pirates, or stop an unshielded krogan in one shot. Favored by mercenary leaders and Eclipse mercenary tech specialists, the Carnifex was all power, no grace.

In contrast, the M-3 Predator was chambered for a smaller caliber, but accordingly had a higher rate of fire, a larger clip size, and in the right hands, could one-shot kill most unshielded enemies. A more elegant weapon for a more civilized age, at least compared to the M-6 Carnifex.

Cade clipped two of them onto his armor plates.

Seated beside me, Percival inspected his matte-black, custom M-7 Lancer Assault Rifle. A silenced M-5 Phalanx – the very one they had given him at the conclusion of his N7 training – lay holstered across his chestplate. Across his lower back he clipped an M-23 Katana Shotgun.

"Can't help but notice you didn't bring the gun I got you for your birthing day," Cade said pointedly. He made some micro-adjustments to the scope of his M-98b Black Widow—affectionately nicknamed 'Meera'—before slinging it over his shoulder beside his M-15 Vindicator Battle Rifle.

"First of all it's 'birthday', you bird. Second of all the M-76 Revenant is not an assault rifle, it's a fucking minigun. My shoulder was bruised for a whole week after we went to the firing range. Third of all I'm an Alliance boy through and through. Nothing beats the standard Alliance Marine loadout," Percival explained.

"Whatever," Cade pouted, feigning hurt feelings. He scratched at a bit of dirt on his immaculate black, blue and silver Turian Ghost Infiltrator armor. "That's the last time I ever get you anything nice."

I shook my head and smiled. I had a custom prototype M-92b Snakebite Sniper Rifle—essentially the upgraded version and the spiritual successor to the M-92 Mantis Sniper Rifle—placed horizontally across my lap.

Although the Snakebite was similar to modern mass effect weapons in that it could only fire a limited number of times before either the heatsink overheated or you had to replace the ammo block, it was different in that you had to manually pull back a cooling lever to cool down the snakebite before firing another shot. Cade nodded my way.

"How about you, Cloud?" he pointed at my gun. "Next time we're docked on the Citadel how about we get you something that can fire more than one bullet before overheating?"

"I'm good with the Snakebite, thanks. The bolt-action feel makes me feel super badass."

Cade laughed and proceeded to check the rest of his armor.

I decided that that was a good idea. I ran a quick diagnostic to ensure that the temperature regulation, kinetic shielding, and the built-in communications suite were all working perfectly. Satisfied, I finished up with a check on my suits Tactical Cloaking. I thumbed the switch and watched as my black, scuffed suit faded into invisibility.

"Damn sir, Spectres get all the good shit," admired Gunnery Chief Rakiharu Kinzo, or 'Rake' as he preferred to be called. "When am I going to get a suit like that?" he pointed at me.

"When you save up enough credits, Gunnery Chief Kinzo," Percival responded. Cade and I laughed at that again. Rake sat there with a confused smile on his face but didn't join in, due to him not understanding the joke.

Across from Percival, Cade and I sat a fireteam from the SSV Excalibur's marine detachment. Handpicked by Percival and I (Cade kept submitting requests for an all-female fireteam) the marine fireteam would provide us with on-site combat support in case of an emergency. Although the Excalibur also boasted a detachment of Jaegers given the import of our mission, Percival had ordered them to remain aboard the ship as a specialized quick reaction force in the event of an attack.

The other three marines sat silently for the duration of the ride. Despite having served on the same ship for the last six months, none of them felt comfortable enough yet to casually converse with us. One had a Navy Corpsman patch on his right shoulder, while another had a cross from some old Earth religion tattooed on his neck. The last one was a poker-faced female marine who had silently rebuffed Cade's attempts at conversation throughout the entire ride. Good on her.

Although the Hammerhead dropship had no windows, I felt a subtle shift in mass indicating that we had entered the mass effect fields that generated the artificial gravity aboard the SSV Hippocrates. I felt the dropship slow down and come to a light halt.

I undid my harness and walked over to the Hammerheads' doors. I fisted the controls and did my best to look as menacing as possible as the dropship doors slid open, revealing a handful of nervous-looking maintenance techs and an attractive, blond woman in a lab coat.

It was a good chance to practice my best "I-can-kill-you-in-300-different-ways-face". Percival had his down to a pat, while Cade's always made him look roguishly charming. Me? I looked as I always did, like someone had just shot my dog.

Despite our camaraderie and our vast number of similiarities, Cade, Percival and I had differing philosophies when it came to co-opting civilian help for the sake of completing the mission. Percival firmly believed that you caught more flies with honey, while Cade liked to either piss vinegar all over the situation or whip out his dick for something else, depending on whether you were a human female. Humans may have coined and developed the honeypot, but Spectre operative Cade Kitiarian perfected it.

I stood for a moment at the dropship doors and stared into the eyes of each and every tech with an unspoken promise of pain and death should they come between me and my job. I ignored Cade who had dug an elbow painfully into my lower back, wordlessly urging me stop my posturing and move my ass.

When it came to galactic safety, I myself preferred the stick to the carrot.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1152 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Docking Bay 4-D_

 _5 hours, 10 minutes before Outbreak._

I slowly walked out of the dropship, stomping down the ramp like an angry god. Predictably, Cade maneuvered around me, extending a gloved hand to the attractive, female scientist.

"Spectre operative Kitiarian, call me Cade." He introduced himself. "These are my fellow Spectre operatives Percival and Cloud," he gestured at Percival and I respectively.

I eyed the scientists' hand as she shook Cades, making note of a gleaming diamond ring. I glanced over at Percival knowingly and saw a light smile on his face. Either Cade was, ironically, unfamiliar with human relationship customs or just didn't care.

I lightly brushed Cade aside and also shook the scientists' hand.

"Operative Cloud, ma'am," I introduced myself. "Here on the orders of the Citadel Council to observe the initiation of phase 2 of Project Prometheus."

She turned her attention from Cade and smiled at me. "Doctor Sarah Messner, Alliance R and D and one of the head scientists for Project Prometheus, but feel free to call me Sarah. Welcome aboard, Spectres."

She turned and to walk across the hangar bay, heading for a pair of doors marked 'Central Passageway'. I made a note of the layout of the hangar and its contents for future reference, then gestured for the marines to follow. As she walked she began talking.

"As you're already aware, the situation on earth necessitated the initiation of Project Prometheus," she began. "For the last near-decade we've been studying the problem and merely running simulations instead of actual testing".

She slapped a green button, opening the doors, "Understandable given the object in question and its capabilities."

We entered the main central passageway of the SSV Hippocrates. The passageway was enormous, unlike anything you'd see on a Systems Alliance Warship. Nearly fifty meters across and a kilometer long, the main passageway ran from the ships bridge to the ship's stern, and counting the number of decks, linked at least a dozen of the 24 decks together.

Above us running the entire length of the passageway ran a large cylinder which I took to be the ships main Mass Effect accelerator cannon. In the middle, a moving conveyer belt allowed for swift passageway through the ship. I could see a spiderweb of catwalks that criss-crossed the upper levels.

I could see droves of maintenance techs, a few dozen scientists, and several armed patrols spread out across the main passageway. Some were driving carts while others were using the moving conveyer belt. A Krogan scientist was shouting at a human female maintenance tech. A gaggle of asari scientists were exiting from a door, conversing about crop yields on Rannoch. It seemed more like a small city than a ship. We boarded the belt and began moving towards the ships' Bridge.

"Isn't the ship personnel listed at about a thousand? This is a big ship for so little people," Percival asked Sarah.

"1053 people in fact," she answered, "actually, a lot of the room aboard the ship is dedicated towards the research labs for each of the respective departments in the Systems Alliance Research and Development Division. Each lab takes up several decks, with an appropriate amount of storage space for the necessary equipment required by the labs."

She sent us each a schematic of the ship on our omni-tools. I pulled it up, noting that the Prometheus Project had its own separate lab towards the rear of the ship, comprised of five different decks.

The main engine room and the back-up generators were awkwardly positioned further up, situated in the belly of the ship. Crew quarters, mess and armory were situated along the top of the ship. A variety of labs made up the starboard and port sides, each of them taking up several decks. I could see that most of the labs had wide open spaces where the floors between the decks had been removed. Closest to the hull were the hangar bays —also massive and several decks high.

She was right. Despite the immense size of the ship, there weren't many areas where people would have a reason to be, a large percentage of the ship being dedicated to the labs or to the storage of equipment in support of the labs. Most of the SSV Hippocrates was indeed dead space.

"Excuse me, ma'am," asked the female marine. Soph, if I recalled. "The schematics list the SSV Hippocrates as having only two Mark II Newton Drive Cores, one in the main engine room and one in the secondary engine room."

She paused to walk around a hulking krogan security guard. "Given the size of this ship and its function, I'd imagine that you'd have much higher energy requirements than what two drive cores could generate."

Sarah smiled and nodded, "You're absolutely right, miss-?".

"Croft. Specialist Sophia Croft, ma'am." Soph provided.

"Well Specialist Croft, the Drive Cores mainly provide energy for Life Support, Weapons, deck lighting, and propulsion", she explained. "Much of the equipment and many of the labs run on modular power cells, a safety precaution in the event that both drives stop working. But I hardly doubt that such an event would occur."

Soph nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. I made a mental note to review what I had heard later on, it would undoubtedly be useful.

A loud clatter tore me from my thoughts. I had one hand on the holster of my M-3 Predator and another ready to throw the fattest warp this ship had ever seen.

"Watch where you're going, _pendejo!"_ cursed a female techie, " _Maldito turiano."_

I quickly profiled her. She was about 5'9 and in her early-to-mid twenties, slightly built, with bright yellow highlights in her brown hair. Around her feet were a few maintenance tools commonly used to perform calibrations on drive cores and a data pad that showed a schematic of the back-up generators. I surmised that she was part of the engineering team responsible for the engine room.

In front of her, Cade stood with his hands raised.

" _Lo siento Hermoso, dejame recogerlos para ti,_ " Cade apologized in fluent, hissing Spanish. He knelt down and quickly retrieved the items he had inadvertently knocked out of her hands.

The female tech stood askance, likely in shock that a turian had chosen to respond to her in Spanish.

Cade towered over her, inches from her face. I could see his mandibles flutter in the turian equivalent of a grin as she silently took the proffered items from his gloved hands.

After a long, awkward pause she whispered "It's no problem," in heavily accented English. She grabbed the items out of Cades hands and quickly headed down a side corridor.

"I was unaware that Operative Kitiarian could speak Spanish," Sarah stated in an impressed tone.

"It's a useful linguistic skill to possess, Dr. Messner, especially during deep-cover operations," Cade firmly asserted. "Besides, Spanish is one of the few human languages that we turians do not require universal e-translators to speak. Our tongues and mouths are perfectly shaped and agile enough for the rolling r's and hissing s'."

I rolled my eyes. Behind me, Percival rolled his eyes. Behind Percival the marines rolled their eyes. Above us, God rolled his eyes.

Percival opened up on our own little private channel to Cade. " _You know, not to crush your dreams but I'm pretty sure that that techie doesn't like turians."_ Percival could speak Spanish too.

" _I can't help myself, it's the hunt my friend. Turians evolved as the apex predator race on Palaven. It's in our genes,"_ Cade responded.

Back to the mission at hand. As we approached the end of the main central passageway and neared the Bridge, the number of armed guards seemed to double. I saw mostly human and turian marines who had been assigned to the SSV Hippocrates, but also more than a few krogan shock troopers and even a few salarian combat specialists.

The doors to the Bridge slid open, and we all filed inside. The bridge was a large, oval room dominated by a huge, omni-glass viewport. A myriad of orange, blue and red displays and technical readouts lined the walls, while tech consoles manned by crewmen were situated beneath them. In the center of the large room was a large holo-table that projected a 3-d model of the ship.

In front of it stood a large man in a Systems Alliance Navy uniform. He stood at about an even height with Percival. I put his biological age at roughly 60 earth years, if the salt-and-pepper hair greying at the temples were any indication.

A set of gleaming Captain's bars sat squarely on his broad shoulders. His chest was covered in medals and commendations. Like many other naval officers I'd had the misfortune of working with, he exuded an air of haughty holier-than-thou attitude. He glared at us with his best "I-can-kill-you-in-300-different-ways face." What a rank, fucking amateur.

Beside him stood an older, brown-plated, turian with green facial markings. His bars marked him as a Lieutenant-Commander, the ease and confidence with which he stood beside the Captain marked him as the ship's XO, or 'executive officer'.

"Officers on Deck!" shouted Rake. The marines behind me stood at attention and saluted. I restrained the urge to roll my eyes again.

The XO waved a hand and the marines relaxed, he was the first to introduce himself to us. Compared to the Captain he seemed much more gregarious and approachable. My preliminary instinct was that he was more likely to work with "above-the-law, gun-slinging, reckless Spectres". If they were going to pull a good-cop bad-cop routine I was going to end up shooting them.

"Doctor Messner, thank you for escorting them to the Bridge," he dipped his head at Sarah, "I am Lieutenant Commander Syriah Bartalus, executive officer of the SSV Hippocrates. We're glad to have you aboard."

"Pleasure to be aboard, Lieutenant-Commander," Percival professionally replied.

 _Cue display of dominance._ I thought.

The captain chose that moment to speak up. He brushed past his XO to stand nose to nose with Percival. I could see anger and some contempt etched into his eyes, with more than a hint of superiority.

"I am Captain Jameson Farragut," he intoned. "Let me begin by saying this is my ship, my responsibility. I am tasked with commanding the ship responsible for conducting a mission of paramount importance to galactic safety."

He moved an inch closer to Percival. "You Spectre's might think you're above the law, that you can shoot-first and use the red tape to wipe your ass afterwards. But if your recklessness jeopardizes this ship I will not hesitate to put you down, Spectre authority or not."

He backed up a few steps, his tone dropping in severity and harshness.

"I've read your file, Operative Percival. Two years in the Systems Alliance Marine Corps, three years as an N7, and the last seven as a Council Spectre. Beyond that, I've read about your mission on Bahak," He clapped a hand on Percival's shoulder. "I know I can count on you to make the proper decisions." He said conspiratorially.

Percival didn't flinch, didn't sweat, didn't so much as twitch a single jaw muscle. "Be that as it may, Captain," he responded, "I am a Council Spectre." He gently removed the Captain Farragut's hand from his shoulder.

"It means that I am responsible for galactic safety. Not just the Systems' Alliance's, not just Humanity's, and most certainly not just this ships. The Galaxy. It means that I and my fellow colleagues have the absolute authority to do whatever we see fit, using whatever we deem necessary, and by any means possible in order to uphold that responsibility."

Percival took a step closer into the Captains' personal space in a very disrespectful, un-Percival-ish move. "It also means that your "command" over this this ship, your reputation, and your push for those Admirals' bars come a very, very distant second to our mission." Percival said unblinkingly, "Because like you, I've also done my research."

The entire bridge was dead silent. None of the crewmen made a sound, the rhythmic typing that was heavily pervasive on the bridge deck of any Systems Alliance ship had ceased. Sarah cleared her throat nervously, while the marines were holding their breath at the sheer lack of disrespect that Percival had just displayed to someone could technically be considered their commanding officer.

A green light lid up on my omni-tool. It was a private chat message. I discreetly tapped it open.

 _[SpectreOp. CK] [12:26]: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH_

I suppressed a smile.

The Captain looked away first. He cleared his throat and nodded. "Good to know that we have such dedicated operatives assigned to us," he conceded in an attempt to save face, "I'll leave the debriefing to my XO. If there's anything you need from us please do not hesitate to ask, operatives."

Captain Farragut strode off towards the bridge viewport, and activity returned to the bridge as the crewmen resumed their duties. Instead of letting out a sigh of relief like some amateur, Percival starred daggers into the back of the Captain's head.

The XO, Lieutenant-Commander Syriah Bartilus, turned to us and rubbed his fringe in poorly concealed embarrassment.

"I'm sorry about that, the Captain can be quite protective of his ship," he apologized, eliciting a snort from Cade. "If you could all follow me to the briefing room, the head scientists of Project Prometheus will give you a more detailed breakdown of the situation."

He began leading us to a briefing chamber adjacent to the bridge. During the short walk, XO Bartilus dropped a few paces back to walk beside Cade, seemingly intent on engaging him in conversation.

"Cade Kitiarian, it's an honor to finally meet you in person," Bartilus gushed. "Your actions during the Palaven Rebellions saved a lot of lives. You are a shining example of the best that the Turian Hierarchy has to offer."

Cade Kitiarian's mandibles barely so much as fluttered at the praise. "Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. I did what duty required, as would have any other loyal turian in that situation." He formally replied.

Any good humor that lingered from Percival's thrashing of the Captain had instantly evaporated at the mention of Cade's service record. It had always been a touchy subject with my silver-plated friend. It was something that he neither brought up often nor sought to expand upon when broached by adoring fans.

"Nonetheless, you saved the Primarch. Had the secessionists succeeded, hundreds if not thousands more would have died," Bartilus continued, heaping praise on the younger turian. "It is an honor to be in the presence of a hero. Die for the cause," he finished.

"Die for the cause, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus," Cade returned through slightly clenched teeth. Satisfied, Barthilus led the remainder of the walk to the briefing room in silence.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1229 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Briefing Chamber 16-A_

 _4 hours, 31 minutes before Outbreak._

The briefing room was moderately sized, consisting of a round, oval table designed to seat maybe eight individuals. A huge monitor used to display tactical data and video footage dominated an entire wall of the room.

Seated at the table were three scientists, research personnel whom I presumed to be the ones in charge of the Prometheus Project. All of them were in their late 40's to early 50's, old enough to have survived and possibly served in the Reaper War. One of them was a Caucasian male, well-built with a rough five-o-clock shadow. From the mission briefings I had read prior, I presumed that he would be Dr. Paul Messner, one of the leading minds in neural engineering. My suspicions were confirmed when Dr. Sarah Messner took the seat beside him and planted a brief kiss on his cheek.

Also seated at the table was a scientist from what used to be the United Arab Emirates on Earth who I took to be Dr. Rabhu Singh, a scientist of significant fame who hailed from Terra Nova. I had read some of his works on Synthetic Virology. He was an undisputed master of his branch of study, and I could see why SA R and D had poached him for this project.

Seated beside Dr. Singh was Dr. Ishmael Landry, who I knew to be one of the leading scientists in the field of molecular biology. Hailing from what was once formerly known as the United States of America, Dr. Ishmael Landry had had a significant role in the development of the current DNA vaccine given to all Systems Alliance Armed Forces for protection from hostile diseases on foreign planets.

So a Neural Engineer, a Synthetic Virologist, a Xenoscience Engineer, and a Molecular Biologist are all together in the same room. And the punchline is the potentially catastrophic loss of human life. Oh and Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus, Turian Hierarchy representative, was there too.

Percival took a seat at the table, with Cade seated on his left and I on his right. The marines took up protective positions at the door.

Lieutenant Commander Barthilus gazed pointedly at the marines that we had brought from the Excalibur. "Marines," he began, "while we may have little to no control over the action of Council Spectres, I feel the need to remind you that you are still technically under the command of the Systems Alliance, of which Captain Farragut and technically I hold seniority in. Divulging any of the information you hear in this room today to unsanctioned third-parties will be considered an act of high treason against the Systems Alliance, the punishment which shall be, if the court-martial finds you guilty, execution."

The marines behind me nodded, although one of them —the shorter marine with the cross tattoo— swallowed nervously.

Sarah clicked a button on the table, causing the huge monitor behind them to become alight with information.

"As you are aware, Spectres, the rapidly deteriorating situation on earth following the conclusion of the Reaper War remained undetected for nearly a decade and a half before being discovered by our scientists," Sarah began. She clicked another button and an image of Earth and of London were promptly displayed.

"The huge amounts of debris and element zero pollution from the thousands of destroyed starships during the final hours of the Reaper War created a barrier that prevented us from sending in anything beyond immediate search and rescue teams. This in part contributed in the delayed discovery of the phenomenon currently occurring on Earth."

The display shifted again, now displaying what had been construction efforts in New Dubai, Quezon City, and parts of what I recognized to be Northern Africa. "Construction efforts began in 2190 in what had been the less densely-populated areas of Earth. Reaper forces had concentrated the bulk of their harvesting in the more populated cities, such as Sydney, Shanghai, and New Delhi and as a result, much of the infrastructure in such locations were beyond the possibility of salvage. Although Earth's population had decreased by an estimated 36%, the Systems Alliance sought to repair as much as possible to accommodate the rapidly growing number of refugees."

Dr. Landry took over, clicking another button. This time a picture of odd-looking earth fauna and an image of a double-helix popped up on the display. "Following the discovery of the phenomenon in 2192, construction efforts were halted indefinitely. The Systems Alliance pulled out all relief efforts. Asari and salarian peacekeepers ceased operations, and although turian and quarian support workers seemed unaffected, they were evacuated as well. Earth was declared a planet-wide quarantine zone."

Dr. Landry changed the display again, this time it displayed a male, human cadaver in his early twenties with his thoracic cage cut open, exposing organs that were tinged silver. "We originally hypothesized that it was some form of advanced Element Zero poisoning. The Battle for Earth released unprecedented amounts of Element Zero and other unknown mechano-synthetic substances and pollutants into the atmosphere. A long-range Systems Alliance surveillance team was established on Luna and a sub-department was created in the Systems Alliance Research and Development division to study and hopefully synthesize a cure for the phenomenon."

Dr. Singh took over for his colleague. He pressed yet another button and this time two images popped up. One was a topographical map of Earth, with large splotches covered in orange, a few red splotches around London, and lighter green ones in Africa, Canada, and Central China. Another image was that of Earth, but this time the splotches of red were much darker, much larger, and much more unnerving.

"On the left is an image taken by the Systems Alliance Surveillance team back in April of 2201. On the right is an image taken in March of 2202. As you can see, in less than a year the phenomenon has underwent a phase of exponential growth and expansion. We don't know why and we don't know how. Project Prometheus was initiated in June of 2202 to further research into the matter. Our goal was to find a cure, or failing to do so, to slow it down. Buy us enough time to figure out how to fix or even reverse this phenomenon."

Beside me, Percival stared unblinkingly at each image and report that popped up on the display, absorbing as many details as possible and using them to enhance and enforce the data that the Council had given us. Cade and I were doing the same thing. We had known it was bad, we didn't know it had gone bad so fast, and worst, it had been almost a decade since it had gone bad.

Dr. Paul Messner finally spoke up. He clicked another button and this time an image of Armali, capital city of Thessia, homeworld of the Asari popped up on the screen. "Last year we began receiving reports of the phenomenon occurring on the Asari homeworld on Thessia, and on a select few other worlds that had significant Reaper presence during the Reaper War. Although it hasn't yet appeared on Palaven, we believe that it is a matter of time, and that it could somehow be tied to the Reapers."

He clicked one last button, and an image of an Asari cadaver came up on the display. Her blue skin was pale and grey and had a slightly metallic sheen, her skull was transversally dissected, revealing her brain which was also a greyish tinge.

"Whatever this phenomenon is, it's jumped the species barrier, and we're no closer to understanding it than we were nine years ago." Paul stated. "We still don't fully understand what the Reapers were capable of, what the full extent of their technology was and whether or not this was directly or indirectly caused by them –a sleeping bomb so to speak. This isn't at all like any of the Husking processes reported by the Normandy SR-2 during the Reaper War, and I truly believe that were running out of time."

Finally, Sarah stood up and looked each and every one of us in the eye.

"And that's the full story, Spectres. You know what we have on board, you know what we intend to do and why we intend to do it, and I think you know that if we are to fully understand and solve this crisis, we have no other choice," She finished.

Yeah. I knew exactly why we were on board.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1611 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 6, Observation Chamber 6-G – Prometheus Labs._

 _49 minutes until Outbreak_

"This is fucking crazy, we're not letting you do this," Cade argued.

"You heard the good Doctors," I calmly responded. "We can't risk any weapon accessibility in the event of an Indoctrination event, and my armor's electronic suites might provide unwanted interference."

"Then let me go instead," he further argued.

While I was touched by my friend's vehement protest at my volunteering to be the on-site Spectre for the activation process, I was also dead certain that I'd rather take twelve inches of krogan up my ass than let either Percival or Cade take my spot.

Unlike my two best friends, I could rely on my biotics to both act as a layer of protection and as a formidable weapon in the event of a truly colossal fuck-up. Without armor and weapons, I had the best chances of survival in a hostile situation, not to mention the fact that I could destroy both of them in hand-to-hand combat albeit, only by a small margin compared to Percival.

"I have my biotics, remember? And beside, I've got you two lovelies watching my shapely behind," I joked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah monitoring a display and typing in commands. Despite how my fellow Spectres were feeling, her body language marked her as relatively relaxed and calm. Weirdly inappropriate, especially considering the gravity of the events to follow.

"Seriously though," I said in a very, very serious tone, "expect shit to go south. How many times have we been told that it's all going to be fine and dandy only to get thrown in the metaphorical wood-chipper?"

"Like seventeen times, and that's not even hyperbole," Cade exclaimed. "Precisely why you standing at ground-zero with nothing but a shitty T-shirt and your L7 amp is such a terrible fucking idea."

He crossed his taloned arms against his chest and leaned against a console.

"Hey, my brother got me this shirt," I pouted, feigning hurt. "And besides, you have my armor and gear. If shit goes south, it's up to you to get them to me."

I clapped my friend on the shoulder. "It also means that if I die horribly due to a lack of armor and weapons, full responsibility for my death falls onto you, friend. So be hasty with the armor delivery, and don't fucking scratch my Snakebite," I added as an afterthought.

Cade scoffed and looked away. Percival stepped up to give me one last big brother lecture before I was to head down to the labs.

"Hey, we've got your back. I'll be in the North Observation room up on deck 4, while Cade will be in the East Observation room up on deck 3. If things go wrong, we'll be able to provide you with some top-down surveillance. Sarah and the marines will be here, they'll also be keeping a close eye on you."

"You can count on us, sir," assured Rake.

"Yeah, we're not gonna let anything happen to you. Operative Percival would have our asses in a sling," voiced the short, tattooed marine. Jay I think his name was.

Sarah chose that moment to walk on over too. She scanned my L7 Biotic Amp with her omni-tool, checked the readings, and nodded in apparent satisfaction.

"Your L7 Biotic Amp seems to be in working order, and it should provide no interference once the activation process begins," she reported.

No shit, I check my baby like Cade checks out girls, and I triple-check the goddamn thing every time I'm asked to go fully weaponless and armorless into some sci-fi horror cliché.

"Thank you, ma'am, I appreciate the consideration," I responded professionally, "I have full confidence in your abilities and in the abilities of my fellow Spectre Operatives and my marines."

That was a half lie. One-third of a lie, technically.

She smiled, accepting the pseudo-compliment. "Alright, everything checks out. When you're ready, feel free to proceed down the elevator to Containment Airlock 1 down on Deck 1 and enter the lab. And make sure Paul doesn't do anything stupid!"

I nodded and turned to walk away. The marines saluted me as I left. Once I entered the elevator, I respectfully saluted Percival and the marines in turn, although officially I was not a part of the Systems Alliance Military. I offered Cade a different kind of salute as the door slid closed. Muzak immediately started to play from the elevator speakers, and I immediately wished that they had let me keep my pistol.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1614 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 12B_

 _46 minutes before Outbreak._

I stepped out of the elevator and turned towards Containment Airlock 1. A pair of maintenance techs entered the elevator behind me and before the doors closed I could hear one of them asking the other why the elevator speakers were shattered.

I walked down the corridor that linked the Ship's Main Central Passageway to Containment Airlock 1 and entered the large room. A few turian and human security personnel manned the booths while several scientists and lab technicians stood in the center of the room, waiting to enter. An attractive red-headed scientist with a Prometheus Project Research Division tab on her left shoulder waved me over.

"Dr. Olivia Flanagan," she introduced herself, "You're the Spectre Operative assigned to on-site rapid response during the activation phase, right?"

She tossed a beaming smile at me and took my hand. For a scientist she had an impressive grip.

"Yes, Spectre Operative Cloud," I shot back.

"Operative Cloud, huh?" she grinned. "You got a first name?"

"Yeah." I flatly stated. My tone brooked no further forms of inquiry on the subject matter. Something that Dr. Flanagan was quick to pick up on.

Unperturbed, she waved me towards the airlock doors that led into the lab. She made a gesture to a tall turian security personnel, who palmed a button that began raising the airlock doors.

"We've been planning for the activation phase for quite some time," she explained as we entered the Labs. "Following the activation of the Crucible at the conclusion of the Final Battle, Reaper forces were completely deactivated, although their hardware was not completely destroyed."

We made our way down what was essentially a large corridor that bisected the labs and lead to where we would initiate the activation process. A number of corridors branched off, some leading to stairs that led to parts of the lab on the upper decks, while others led to secondary experiment rooms, equipment storage, decontamination rooms, etc.

"Initial Search and Rescue teams sent to Earth were sent with the purpose of retrieving survivors. Alliance Research and Development Teams followed in the second wave. There was still so little we knew about the Reapers, facts such as who created them, or how their technology worked," she continued enthusiastically, almost reverently.

"The technological knowledge necessary to create and power a whole fleet of synthetic-organic sentient starships was hundreds, if not thousands of years beyond our capabilities. If we could unlock their secrets, figure out what made them tick, we could have propelled the whole galaxy into a new era of unrivalled peace, prosperity, and technological advancement," she gushed, "Alliance R and D were tasked with collecting as many intact samples of Reaper Tech as possible, in compliance with the shielding protocols established by Commander Shepard during the War."

Several scientists and lab technicians seemed to make respectful eye contact with Dr. Flanagan as we passed by. "Many of the samples are held on Terra Nova, new Capital for the Systems Alliance, while some of the more questionable ones relevant to the Prometheus Project are held here, where we can have direct access for use in our studies."

She turned around and shot a white, charming smile at me just as we approached the doors that led to the activation chamber. She stepped on a platform and placed her palm on a scanner, while a mechanical arm slid out and read the Neural Implant embedded in the back of her skull.

She keyed in a code and the door slid open, revealing a number of lab technicians and VI's, or Virtual Intelligences, monitoring the diagnostics on a variety of different machines that I did not know the function of. Dr. Landry stood alongside Dr. Singh reading something on a terminal while loading a centrifuge with some kind of grey-ish silvery paste, while Dr. Paul Messner was chatting with one of the lab technicians.

And in the center of the room sat a Reaper Core.

My biotics immediately flared to life, causing many of the lab technicians and scientists to look up in fright. Olivia stepped in-front of me and extended her hands in a placating gesture.

"That's a Reaper Core," I flatly stated.

"Yes! An inactive Reaper Core!" she explained desperately. "It's been fully deactivated since the activation of the Crucible 25 years ago, we've completely covered it in a nanite-based electromagnetic shield coating based off of the recommendations provided by Doctor Garett Bryson and Commander Shepard in their report on combatting the indoctrination process."

"And the Reaper CPU? Is it removed? Safely stored?" I asked.

Olivia was rendered speechless with surprise at my mention of the Reaper CPU, like she had not expected that I would possess that level of knowledge regarding Reaper tech.

"Yes! Of course!" she assured. "It's locked down in the ships maximum security vault, fully shielded!" She took a step back, "the experiment only involves the re-activation of the Reaper core, we have no intention of doing it with the Reaper CPU still inside, that would be insane!"

"Your report said that you would be re-activating Reaper constructs. Husks, Marauders, not a fucking Reaper Core," I accused angrily.

Dr. Messner finally noticed my distress and rapidly approached me with a placating look on his face. "Operative Cloud, the Reaper Core was just the casing that contained the Reaper AI. Without the CPU it would be analogous to a-"

"To an empty shoebox," I finished.

"Yes! The Reaper Core, and by extension the Reaper itself, was constructed from the synthetic-organic material harvested from a precursor spacefaring civilization that the Reapers consumed countless cycles ago, but-"

"But each individual Reaper Artificial Intelligence was contained and isolated within the Reaper CPU housed in the Reaper Core itself," I finished again.

"Yes, very impressive."

I retracted the blue, biotic flames that danced up and down my arms and the inhabitants of the room collectively let out a sigh of relief. Sarah's husband gestured for me to follow him, and together we walked up towards the Reaper Core installed on a large, mechanical pedestal.

"I assure you, we thought you knew, we included it in our report to the Council," Paul desperately pleaded. "We have no idea why they would withhold the knowledge that we possessed a Reaper Core here on the Hippocrates."

My mind raced back to the mission briefings that we had been given by the Councillors. They indeed had not explicitly outlined to us what specific piece of Reaper Tech that Project Prometheus would be reactivating, but when someone tells you that they intend to reactivate Reaper technology, you kind of just assume that they wouldn't be reactivating the kind that could get everyone fucking killed.

"Every precaution has been taken. We have the written consent of the council."

Paul typed something on his omni-tool and my omni-tool lit up as it received a writ of consent signed by the Citadel Council authorizing the activation of the Reaper Core.

"We've shielded not only the Core itself, but the room and the lab. Every lab technician and scientist attached to the Prometheus Project undergoes daily psychological and biochemical monitoring," he explained in a further attempt to assuage my unease.

"Without the Reaper CPU, the Reaper Core is just a glorified energy source. The beating heart of the Reaper whereas the Reaper CPU is the brain. Without the CPU and the Reaper AI to direct it, and wrapped in our state-of-the-art electromagnetic nanite coat to prevent indoctrination signals from being emitted, the Reaper Core should be for all intents and purposes be safe to activate."

I nodded reluctantly. I had no way of verifying those consent forms, but at this moment I knew that it was academic, that what these labcoats were proposing had to be done.

In order for us to figure out what the hell was going on with Thessia and Earth, we needed to know more about the Reapers. Twenty-five years of studying inactive husks, brutes, and even recovered banshees had only allowed us to scratch the bare surface of Reaper Technology.

If we were to win this, we had to be willing to take that next step, to take that leap—no matter the risk. Much like the leap that Armstrong himself took in 1969, or the leap that Jon Grissom had taken through the Charon Relay, the first Mass Effect Relay ever discovered by humanity back in 2149, or the leap that the famed Commander Jane Shepard had taken in back in 2183 on Eden Prime.

Now it was my turn.

"Alright," I conceded, "When do we begin?"

Dr. Messner sighed in relief.

He made a hand motion to the lab techs, and they immediately began moving around the room, flipping switches and turning valves on myriad of different panels and machines. Four cylindrical, mechanical devices were situated at each corner of the room, thick, black cabling snaking from them to connect to the Reaper core. From what I knew, they were likely modified miniature Crucibles.

"The original Crucible was merely a power source that fired a dark energy wave that destroyed all the Reaper AI's and the main Reaper Intelligence," Paul continued to explain. "We still had the plans for the Crucible following the conclusion of the War. The four in the room here are modified variants on a smaller scale. Their polarities have been adjusted. Instead of emitting a dark energy wave, it will fire a modified energy wave that in theory should act like a mini-defibrillator that can jumpstart the Reaper Core."

"And is the wave harmless to us?" I asked.

"Yes, we've been able to successfully test the miniaturized Crucibles dozens of times. Like the original Crucible, the energy wave released does not seem to harm organic life, its effect seems limited to Reaper Technology."

"Sounds good, let's get this show on the road," I grimaced. I really had nothing further to say, which was a rare occurrence to say the least.

Paul nodded and continued signaling the rest of the techs. The lights in the lab dimmed, while all manners of lights on the various panels and interfaces that lined the lab began increasing in intensity. The hairs on my bare arms rose as the four miniature Crucibles were powered on and began emitting a subtle electric field. I could see the air around the Reaper Core suddenly shimmer and distort like how to air around desert highway on a hot day would. That would be the nanite shield, I surmised.

"Crucible 1 showing green across the board," a tech announced. Dr's Singh, Landry and Messner were all standing roughly three meters from the core, while the rest of the technicians remained at their stations around the room.

"Crucible 2 is green," another tech reported.

"3 is online and green," announced another.

The electric static in the room intensified. I could feel wisps of biotic lightning begin to sizzle from the back of my amp. Nothing serious, but it served to add to the growing sense of unease that had begun to unearth itself in my gut.

"4 is online, feeding power to the Core now," a fourth tech updated.

"Reaper Core online in 30 seconds," she continued

I ran one last mental check on all the various methods of egress I had highlighted on my way in, said a silent prayer to whatever gods gave a shit, and prepared to either throw up the strongest, hardest biotic barrier in my life, or to run like absolute hell.

"10 seconds," she reported anxiously.

The Reaper Core suddenly pulsed a brilliant, ruby red light. I could see a number of lab technicians pulling away, some edging towards the exits while others cowered into their control panels.

There was a sharp crack, the sound you hear when lightning strikes a building, or when a batarian cracks a whip.

A sharp jolt of red, visible light emanated from the Reaper Core and hit the centrifuge that Dr. Landry and Singh had been working on earlier, shattering the steel casing. Out of the ruined centrifuge rose four greyish-metallic tendrils. Three of them shot towards Dr's Landry, Singh and Messner, hitting them in the chest while the fourth shot straight towards me.

I swiped my hand as fast as I could, my Amp sizzled on and I generated the hardest, strongest biotic barrier that I could muster. The tendril ran right into my barrier and dropped to the ground, while I immediately began to backpedal away from it.

Around the room the lab technicians stood rooted to the floor in fear, looking on towards the scientists in absolute horror. I looked up to see the three scientists convulsing and shrieking in pain. They were hunched over, clawing at their faces and chests. I could see their bones shift and grind beneath their flesh, metal protrusions bursting out of their upper backs and vine-like synthetic cabling ripping out of their arms.

They seemed to grow in size as their bones broke and stretched and broke again. Their howling had ceased, decrescendoing into to an ominous silence as the flesh on their skulls and torsos began to fall away, revealing metal plates and thick, black wires that dripped blue coolant. As one, they all stood up, each of them towering at a height of nearly nine feet.

Their faces were still recognizable, but their eyes were gone, replaced by synthetic red orbs that emitted a harsh, menacing light. A few feet away from me, a female lab technician let out a sharp, ear-piercing scream.


	3. Chapter 3 - Reveille

**Chapter 3: Reveille**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211. 1700 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Prometheus Lab_

 _12 seconds after Outbreak._

A female technician let out a sharp, ear-piercing scream that was cut abruptly short as what had been Dr. Messner drove his cabled arm through her chest.

As she began to mutate before my very eyes, I immediately screamed for everyone to evacuate as loud as I could. My voice jolted the remaining technicians and scientists out of their trance and they all began fearfully scrambling for the exits as fast as they could.

Alarms pounded across the lab and frantic screams punctuated the air as I raced out the door and into a hysterical mass of fleeing scientists and lab technicians. I jammed a finger onto the communication set I wore in my ear.

"Percival, Cade, the Reaper Core went haywire, it started a fucking outbreak of some kind, expect rapid mutation of crew through direct contact. Regard as lethal," I spat.

" _Shit!"_ cursed Percival over my comm. set. " _I've used my Spectre Authority to log into the ships control, containment doors are currently closing and closing fast, but I've managed to set the doors at Containment Airlock 2 into diagnostics mode, that should buy you a couple of minutes."_

"Roger that," I responded. I immediately changed directions towards Containment Airlock 2, dashing perpendicular to the hysteric crowd of lab personnel headed towards Containment Airlock 1. I opened up another channel to Sarah.

"Sarah, do you read?" I shouted, "This is Cloud, do you read me?"

" _I read you Cloud? What happened? Containment alarms are going off-"_

I cut her off. "There's no time to explain, take the marines and meet me at Containment Airlock 2, tell the security fireteam there that I'm on my way and to expect hostiles."

" _We read you, Spectre. We're en route to Containment Airlock 2. Don't keep us waiting, sir."_ Responded Rake over the channel.

I muttered a quick thanks and began opening up a third channel to Cade but was met with sheer silence. Panic and fear gripped my chest, I tried to contact Percival and the marines again but was met with more radio silence. Something or someone must have been jamming our communications.

I resumed my dead man's sprint down the hall, arms pistoning at my sides in an aerodynamically efficient motion, lungs drawing massive gulps of air as deep down as I could, maximizing alveoli exposure to oxygen necessary for optimum respiration, and measuredly exhaling carbon dioxide to alleviate the build-up of lactic acid in my muscles.

I had just sharply turned a corner when something crashed into me. I toppled to the ground with a gasp of pain as I felt cold metallic claws break the skin on my arm. Something big and heavy had ran right into me, bringing me to the ground with a heavy thud felt like it had nearly shattered half my ribs.

Time seemed to slow down, my mind took on a razor-sharp focus as adrenaline flooded my systems and my reflexes kicked in. I raised my fist in a clenching gesture, firing a Stasis at the thing on-top of me, freezing it in place.

I looked up and saw huge, foot-and-a-half metal claws jutting from a half synthetic, half human arm mere inches from my heart. Whatever it was now, it had once been human, and its face was half a foot from mine, gaping maw stretched wide open, studded with razor-sharp, jagged metal teeth and disturbingly what looked to be the teeth of the human that this creature had once been, right down to the metal filings.

I shoved it off of me, shaking in fear at the close call. I pressed down on my freely bleeding arm, cursing my lack of a pistol, and continued my run, wanting to put as much distance between it and I before my Stasis wore off. Off in the distant reaches of the lab I could hear even more screaming and a rising cacophony of angry, almost hungry, howling.

I vaulted nimbly over a railed divider. Ahead of me I could see two more of the shambling monstrosities, their labcoats in tatters with their flesh splitting open to reveal synthetic metal skin and wires, the hair on their heads a mangled, brittle mess.

The corridor was too narrow for me to use a biotic Throw to toss them aside, so without breaking stride I threw another Stasis that froze them in place and slid underneath their outstretched metallic claws before deftly standing upright and resuming my run.

Behind me the Stasis had worn off on the first Corpser and with an angry howl it had also begun chasing me. Three more joined it, before I had even made it another dozen meters I knew that the Stasis had worn off of the two that I had slid beneath.

Thirty meters from the Airlock doors, I ran into a fireteam of living, breathing security personnel led by a stone-faced human marine. Beyond them I saw the airlock doors. They had started to close.

"Get the fuck back out!" I screamed, waving at them with my hands.

"Negative, Spectre! We'll cover your retreat!" shouted the fireteam leader.

I cursed inwardly, I didn't have the luxury or the time to stop and argue with them. I watched the fireteam leader throw a quick salute my way as I dashed by. My eyes met with his for a brief moment and I nodded to him, a part of me hoping that he knew that I would not forget what he chose to do. I still didn't stop, instead I kept sprinting towards the doors closing in the distance, trying my best to distance myself from the angry howling behind me.

The fireteam should have run, could have maybe held them off from outside the airlock, but instead they had chosen to trade their lives for mine to ensure that I got out. I sprinted pass them towards the doors, not understanding why they wouldn't run, why they'd willing stay and get completely torn apart by those monsters.

Behind me I heard the fireteam leader directing his men to lay down suppressive fire. I heard rattling Avenger fire hammer at wave after wave of howling, moaning monsters behind me. The sound of their rifles getting quieter and quieter as the men who fired them screamed as they were pulled apart.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1758 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 16B_

 _58 minutes after the outbreak_

I slowly backed away, my Predator trained on the door separating the Chimera from Sarah and I. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Sarah gamely mimicking my motions, Predator held in a slightly trembling but resolute two-handed grip. Our breaths were heavy as we waited, expecting the Chimera to come bursting through the doors or the deck any minute to tear us apart like it had Corporal O'Neill.

After a few more moments of utter silence I decided that the Chimera had moved on and relaxed my stance. Sarah did the same thing beside me, lowering her gun and letting out a heavy sigh of relief.

My comm. set crackled to life, " _Cloud, it's Percival, you still alive?"_

"Negative," I responded. Despite the best efforts of Soph, the communications channel she had set up was patchy at best and still limited to extreme short range transmissions.

" _Roger, one asshole Spectre listed KIA. What's the status of the VIP?"_

I glanced over at Sarah. Despite having just seen a bunch of pointy freakshows tear their way through a squad of trained security personnel and a 40 foot-long monster made up of a bunch of her fellow scientists spear a grown man through the chest, she had adapted remarkably well to the situation.

She currently had the flashlight on her Predator aimed down the corridor behind us, covering our rear. I had half-expected the combined trauma of losing her husband, witnessing the horrific transformations of the crew, and the overall gravity of the situation to render her into a catatonic mess, but it seemed like she was keeping a tight rein on her panic.

"VIP is green. Fully operational. How's Rake?" I asked. After my sticky grenade failed to kill the Chimera, the marine had put himself between me and the angry, deadly beast and had been batted away.

" _He's alive."_ Percival answered.I let out a sigh and briefly closed my eyes in relief, the stupid asshole could have been killed. " _I have Doctor T'lana taking care of him right now. We pumped him with synthstim and a bit of adrenaline to get him up. No broken bones somehow, but he's got a concussion and some bad bruising on his back. I'm gonna keep him out of the fight as much as I can for the time being."_

"Acknowledged, thanks Perc," I responded. "We're proceeding with Containment Breach Protocol Phase 1. I'm going to take Dr. Messner to the Secondary Engine Room and turn on the back-up generators, then head to the Data Archives to retrieve the Prometheus Project data."

" _Negative, hold your position and wait for us to rendezvous at your location. We'll proceed to the objective together,"_ Percival ordered.

"Perc, we don't have much time, the outbreak is spreading," I objected. "We need to get to that data now, before we can't get to the data at all."

" _I'm looking at the ship schematic now, there's a door partway through the Main Central Passageway that leads to maintenance corridor-"_

"There's no time," I countered. "Look, get to the Bridge and set up a defensive strongpoint. We need somewhere secure to fall back to after we've retrieved the data, and we need somewhere to receive and triage potential survivors."

" _I'll send the scientists and the rest of the marines ahead, then I'll link up with y-"_

"No, Percival. Rake's out of commission and T'lana has to assist him. You'd be leaving them with only six able bodies," I vehemently argued with him.

" _The rest of the marines are green, and the two security personnel and the salarian scientist are combat-capab-"_

"And you want to send them up the Main Central Passageway to the Bridge, the area with the highest population density and therefore the highest probability of encountering those things. You want to send them to die," I finished flatly. "They'll die without you, Percival. They'll never make it to the Bridge"

Percival was silent. Sarah kept glancing back towards me with interest, quietly observing our little spat but otherwise keeping silent watch on our six.

One second of silence, then two, then ten. " _I thought you were all about the mission,"_ he finally answered.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. "I am, and the mission involves evacuating and destroying the ship afterwards and we need to secure the Bridge to do that," I resolutely stated, "trust me, Lancelot. I can do this myself."

There were a few more moments of silence on his end. It was a sneaky, underhanded move, calling Percival by his first name. It was the one surefire way to get him to really stop and listen. I had known Percival for almost half a decade. As brave and as dedicated a soldier as he was, Percival had always had a weakness for his friends. His actions on Bahak had proven that.

" _Alright, bring the back-up generators back online and retrieve the Prometheus Data. I'll escort and round up any survivors that I can and meet you at the Bridge,"_ he reluctantly conceded.

"Roger. I'll keep an eye out for Cade. You said he was probably headed for either the Data Archives or the generators, right?"

" _He knows protocol, those are the locations that I'd be headed if I were him. You two find each other and you two stay safe, you copy?"_

"I copy, dad." I rolled my eyes and grinned a bit, even if my friend wasn't there to see it.

" _We'll probably lose radio contact as you proceed towards the back-up generators."_

"I know, ship schematics indicate that the archives are approximately 112 meters north-west and about 7 decks up, and the back-up generators are situated about halfway between in the secondary engine room. We'll be well out of communications range."

I proceeded to check my armor, looking for any defects or damage that may have occurred during the fight. My arms were still bare so the armor wasn't vacuum sealed but that seemed like a small price to pay when it allowed me greater mobility for my biotic abilities. Temperature regulation and kinetic barriers were optimal although kinetic barriers were essentially useless when the enemy tended to stab you with giant metal claws or huge metal tails instead of firing mass-effect slugs at lethal velocities, but the habit kept my emotions in check and my mind focused on the task at hand.

" _Find him, Cloud. Get that Data. Get to the Bridge. Together. Alive. No heroics,"_ Percival ordered.

"Roger, Cloud signing off."

I checked the heat sink and the ammunition block on my Predator. I had enough for maybe three or four more reloads – approximately 40-odd shots. I still had the dual Talon turian combat knives strapped to my lower back, four more sticky grenades and an L7 amp that was in working order. I sighed and ran a dirty hand through my hair.

I turned to Sarah, who looked at me resolutely. I said nothing to her. Nothing needed to be said.

"Come on, we're headed to the back-up generators and getting that data. We've only got a couple of hours of air left."

I brushed past her and walked into the darkness of the corridor. She followed silently behind me, her breathing even and steady. I glanced above, somewhere above us I could hear faint moaning and rapid, frantic footsteps.

I couldn't save all of them.

"-and Cade better not have scratched my fucking Snakebite," I snarled.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1807 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 16B_

 _1 hour, 7 minutes after the outbreak_

With the life support disabled, the air had taken on a metallic, musky quality that filled the corridors like a grey, murky soup. We carefully made our way down the corridor, wary of making any sounds that could draw unwanted attention to our position. I didn't trust my armor to stand up to a direct hit even from one of those Corpsers and Sarah wore nothing more than civilian clothing.

Sarah glanced at me nervously, "Any idea how we're going to re-activate the back-up generators?" she whispered.

"Either they've turned 'em off, sabotaged them, or destroyed them," I silently answered. "I doubt they'd merely turn them off. If it's software sabotage there's little that I can do. Hardware sabotage –I might have more luck fixing that, I used to have my own ship."

"And if they're destroyed?" she ventured further.

"Then we'd be in a bit of a bind. We would need to make our way to the main engine room on the other side of the ship and check if those generators are intact or we would need to find an alternative power source for the Data Archives, both of which would involve us running around this god damn death trap of a ship and increasing our chances of getting killed or worse," I explained to her.

The state of the ship still didn't make full sense. Someone had cut off our communications and our life support with what I had initially assumed to be the intention of slowly killing everyone on board and preventing us from calling for help. However, if they intended to kill us, why not prematurely detonate the ship? Likely because their interests lie in some asshole-ish ulterior motive rather than in actually preventing the spread of this outbreak. Assholes.

"Actually, we might actually have another option," Sarah told me. "Both the main generators and the back-up generators in the Primary and Secondary engine rooms have adapters that allows them to draw power from the power-cells found and used throughout the ship. It was another function designed as a further failsafe in-case both the main and the back-up generators failed."

I looked at her incredulously even though I doubted that she could see my expression in the dark.

"So almost everything on this ship can run on remote power cells? Labs, engines, even equipment?" I queried.

"Yes. Aside from Project Prometheus, Alliance R and D is running almost a dozen other major projects amongst their various divisions. An absolute loss of power would be catastrophic." She explained.

I shuddered for a minute at the thought a dozen other projects blowing up in my face. "If we could get our hands on some power cells, would you know how to hook them up?"

"Yeah, I can," she assuredly stated. "Every scientist aboard the SSV Hippocrates received basic emergency tech training on how to utilize power cells to power our equipment. The last thing you want is to be stuck waiting for the engineering crew while your lab suffers a catastrophic meltdown due to a power failure."

I smiled in the dark. "Better not let you die, then," I joked.

"Yeah, you better," she shot back.

We continued padding softly down the darkened corridor, weary of making any noise. Far above us I could hear those footsteps again, though this time the footsteps were moving much more rapidly than before. I listened as they continued on for a few more seconds when suddenly a shrill, terror-filled scream emitted from above. The footsteps stopped after that.

"What was that?" Sarah whispered nervously.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." I assured her.

My nerves stood on end. Icy tendrils of fear and nervousness seemed to snake around my neck, choking me. I gripped my Predator tighter. We passed a few locked storage closets but had yet to encounter another living soul, hostile or otherwise. Actually, I couldn't say for sure if those things still had souls. I sincerely hoped that whoever the person inside those abominations had been before being turned, that that person wasn't still conscious and trapped inside those murdering monsters. Becoming one of those things was bad enough. To be trapped inside and conscious as it used your body to kill and turn others? Well, I would rather die before letting that happen.

I heard footsteps again coming from the intersection maybe ten meters ahead. I strained my ears and held an arm out to halt Sarah who silently stopped without question. The footsteps were plodding and heavy and most definitely not human.

I quietly dropped into a prone position which Sarah quickly mimicked, trusting the darkness and the distance to keep us out of the peripheral vision of whatever was about to walk through the intersection. I prayed that they were going to pass by us instead of coming down our corridor. I didn't fancy another close-quarters encounter with a Corpser.

I saw the eerie red and blue lights that seemed to emanate from their bodies before I saw the actual Corpser itself. A massive Krogan Corpser maybe two meters tall shambled through the intersection, the lights from its body illuminating wicked metal spikes nearly two and a half feet in length jutting from its arm. I heard a slight gasp behind me and wrapped a hand around Sarah's mouth. She clutched my hand in a deathly-tight grip.

I few more seconds later another Corpser followed, this one a salarian. It was slim and almost emaciated compared to the Krogan Corpser. Behind it trailed four more human Corpsers with soft blue lights coming from their stomachs. I could see their stomachs stretching and ballooning as the Crawlers housed inside shifted and turned.

We waited on our own stomachs for a few more minutes to allow the Corpser pack to put as much distance between us and them before we continued on. I halted before the intersection and peeked my head to look down the corridor they went. They must have turned a corner or something, because I couldn't see them anymore.

Sarah and I cautiously cleared the intersection. We traversed about another twenty meters when suddenly my comm. set cracked to life.

" _H-h-hello? I-Is a-anyone o-on this channel?"_ someone whispered.

I immediately responded. "This is Spectre Operative Cloud, who am I talking to?" I whispered back, inwardly cursing furiously at my lack of a sealed helmet. Without it I'd have to watch my volume or else risk attracting unwanted, homicidal attention.

" _B-B-arbra, Barbra Peterson, maintenance technician,"_ she answered.

"Barbra, this is an extreme short-range channel, can I ask you where you are?" I queried further.

" _I'm in an employee lounge. I've locked the door, but I can hear those things outside. Are you the rescue team?"_ Barbra pleaded.

"I'm not the rescue team, but I'm nearby. I'm going to come get you, okay?" I confidently assured her. "I want you to stay away from the door, stay away from the vents, and get underneath something. Can you do that for me Barbra?"

" _Yes,"_ she whispered.

Sarah stepped towards me and grabbed my bicep. "I know where that lounge is, it's slightly out of our way towards the secondary engine room," she whispered. "There should be another intersection about 25 meters ahead, we need to make a left there and detour down about 40 meters to a second intersection, and it should be on our right."

I nodded. "Barbra, hey, it's me. Do you have a weapon?" I asked her.

" _No. Please hurry, I can hear those things trying to get in."_

Her tone was getting increasingly desperate. I could hear the moans in question through my comm. set.

"Were on our way, okay? Sit tight, I'm not going to let anything happen to you," I assured her.

We began increasing our pace as much as we could. I checked the ammunition on my M-3 Predator and the activation triggers on my sticky grenades. Sarah checked her heatsink and ammunition block as well, staying roughly two feet behind me and making period checks of our six.

" _Cloud? They're almost through. Oh god, I should have let them in, I should have let them in, I should have let them in—,"_ she began repeating frantically.

"What? No, don't let them in. Whatever you do, do not open that door!" I ordered loudly, the urgency of her situation causing me to throw caution to the wind. Our hastened steps echoed frustratingly loudly in the darkness of the corridor, loud enough that I felt for certain the every shambling freak on this deck would hear us and begin converging on our location.

" _No, not the monsters. My friends. I should have let them in but I got scared. I ran inside when the monsters came and locked the door and they were banging on it and they were begging me to open it but the monsters were outside and then they would be inside and I should have let them in, I should have let them in.."_

I opened my mouth, speechless. Beside me Sarah let out a faint sob. We were halfway down to the second intersection, I could hear low moans and growls coming nearby.

"Listen to me Barbra," I firmly responded. "Whatever you did can be forgiven, trust me on that. Your friends would forgive you. They would understand that you were scared," I lied.

"We're almost there. Whatever you do, don't open that door," I begged her. We were meters from the corridor. My biotics flared to life, purple-ish blue flames snaking up and down my arms. My comms. set crackled again.

" _They're almost through. Please, please please please please please don't tell Nancy what I did. Tell Nancy that I was brave, tell Nancy that I tried to save my friends. Promise me, promise me that… OH GOD-,"_

Sarah and I turned the corner. Four human Corpsers stood outside the lounge door. The fury inside me coiled and sprung, the biotic blue flames surrounding my arms sparking and crackling like lit roman candles as I forcefully waved my left hand forward, firing a blistering dark-purple orb of energy that flew among the Corpsers.

They were violently yanked off their feet by the Singularity, flailing helplessly and shrieking in rage at having their hunt interrupted. I threw my left fist forward again, this time firing a massive, blue Warp that slammed into the Corpsers trapped in my Singularity, detonating it in a bright, blue explosion that ripped large gouges in the surrounding bulkheads and utterly disintegrating the former humans and the Crawlers they housed.

A shambling salarian Corpser walked out of the room, moaning angrily at the death of his pack. Beside me Sarah fired a half-dozen rounds from her Predator into what used to be his chest and head, blowing it apart and dimming its lights. Crawlers began tearing out of its stomach but I threw another bright, blue Warp and destroyed them too. I sprinted into the room.

In the vibrant, cobalt light of my biotics, I could see broken furniture lay scattered around the lounge, the tiny diminutive body of a girl in a maintenance tech uniform lying bloody and broken beneath a steel coffee table. Towering over her was a monstrous, krogan Corpser with fresh, red blood coating its teeth-studded maw.

It slowly turned around at my entrance, lifted its arms and roared in an angry challenge. It moved to charge towards me but my left hand flew up in a fist, firing a Stasis and immobilizing him in place. I calmly walked towards it and emptied half of my Predator into its gaping jaw, blowing out its brain pan. I emptied the other half of my clip into its chest, cracking and weakening the giant headplate protecting its temples. I smoothly holstered my Predator, drew my dual Talon combat knives and drove them into the sides of its head, severing its secondary nervous system and killing it for good.

Sarah padded quietly into the room, one hand grasping her smoking Predator and the other clutching her mouth. I pulled the Talons out of the Corpser and wiped them on what was left of its face before sheathing them behind my back. My face a grim mask, I made my way to where Barbra lay and slowly knelt down at her side. Her eyes were open and staring, her last expression an expression of shock and fear. Sarah moved beside me, tears slowly streaming down her face. She had heard every word of our last exchange, had known what Barbra had done and the price that she had paid.

I swept my hands over her eyes to close them shut. I grabbed an old blanket lying atop one of the overturned couches and pulled them over her body, hiding the bleeding, jagged teeth marks and torn flesh around her neck and shoulders.

I took one last look at her face and then pulled her comm. piece from her ears and handed it to Sarah, who put it on with shaking hands.

I stood up rather quickly, and for a minute my vision darkened and my L7 amp sparked. I fumbled my way over to a water fountain and gripped its edge tightly for a second. I waited for the brief vertigo to pass before impatiently pressing the water dispenser. I scowled when nothing came out, cursing electronic water fountains and cursing the saboteurs who had disabled our power. I had come close to red-lining my amp that last fight with my unusually vicious biotic combination on the Corpser pack. Coupled with the stress of the fight at Containment Airlock 1 and the one-sided duel with the Krogan Corpser, I had pushed my amp a smidge too hard.

"Are you alright?" Sarah asked. Her tone was concerned as she gently padded around Barbra's body and made her way towards me.

"Fine," I flatly stated, "just a bit hungry and thirsty." My stomach growled as if to agree with me. Generating the dark energy fields necessary to utilize my biotics required calories that I had neglected to supply my body.

My last meal had been back on the SSV Excalibur, and the ration bars and electrolyte fluids that I usually kept on hand were somewhere with Cade alongside my armor and my weapons. I briefly looked around in the dark, trying to locate a fridge but failing to spot one. I breathed a heavy sigh and began exiting the lounge, not sparing the dead girl another glance.

"That's not what I meant." she stated sadly, but otherwise wisely decided not to press it. She quietly followed me and together we resumed our way to the secondary engine room.

We backtracked our way back to the first intersection. Thankfully nothing jumped out to try to disembowel us. I could sense Sarah biting back words of consolation, probably shit about how we tried our best or how we couldn't have saved her.

Except I could have saved her. I could see it play out in my head like a bad, shitty movie. Had I chosen to engage the Corpsers at that first intersection, she would have lived. Had my conversation with Percival back outside Containment Airlock 1 been half a minute shorter, she would have lived. Had I chosen to run a little faster instead of maintaining a cautious pace, she would have lived.

As a Spectre, they don't teach you how to fight or shoot. They don't teach you how to negotiate with terrorists, how to disarm a bomb, and they most certainly don't teach you how to cope with the death of innocents. "Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle – those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file."

Those were the words some uptight Asari councilor had imperiously stated at my induction into the Spectre Corps. Not trained, but chosen. Chosen not because they can kill and shoot and watch innocents die, but because they can kill and shoot and watch innocents die and keep on going.

Becoming a Spectre is incredibly easy, a bunch of suits come in, they wave their hands, and the next thing you know you can go anywhere, do anything in the name of galactic safety. But staying a Spectre? Sure you might already know how to shoot, how to lie, how to infiltrate and steal and murder, but you also had to be immune to all the stone-cold fuckery that you saw on the job or else you'd blow your brains out.

Cade, Percival and I, we had seen some shit and we had always kept going. We had seen half-crazed, doped-up Vorcha tear apart civilians, Krogan extortionists set hostages on fire when their families were unable to pay their ransoms, seen quarian rape victims die of infections. On my shit-meter, those lost innocents didn't register. The fireteam that had bought me the time I needed to escape the Prometheus Labs didn't register, Barbra shouldn't, _didn't_ , even register. So if Sarah wanted to play shrink with me she was going to have a less than stellar time.

I held my breath, expecting her to chime in with some well-intentioned, useless remark or psychoanalytic crap, but she didn't say anything. If her gaze held any sympathy it was too dark to see.

A common misconception was that Spectres didn't feel. That was wrong, at least in most cases. There were the odd few who were complete, utter sociopaths, but the majority of us were just people who knew that if we weren't the ones who had to make the hard choices, then it'd be some other poor sap, someone who might not be capable of making or even surviving those choices. Spectres felt, but they didn't feel immediately, they bottled it all up and saved it for the next guy dumb enough to try to screw with the galaxy.

"Wait," Sarah sharply, "there's a storage room nearby that I know for a fact houses a couple of spare power cells. I accidentally walked in there a few months ago looking for spare lab equipment and found a locker full of them there. We should check it out."

"Good, might save us some time. Lead the way."

Sarah nodded and took point, keeping her Predator raised. I fell back and began covering our rear, making periodic sweeps to ensure nothing would sneak up on us.

After a while Sarah decided to break the silence. "So," she began, "what were you before you became a Spectre? I think you mentioned that you weren't military?"

She waited patiently as I paused to consider my answer. "I was a delivery boy," I finally responded.

"A delivery boy?" she said incredulously. "What, like pizza?"

"Something like that," I said dismissively.

She shook her head disbelievingly. "So how do you get from a delivery boy to Spectre? You're also a biotic too."

"You can be a biotic and still be a delivery boy," I said defensively.

"Yeah, but I find it hard to believe that you can go from a delivery boy to a badass Spectre without you being part of some super-secret special operations group or something."

"You think I'm a badass?" I laughed.

"5 out of 10. Not quite bonafide." She joked back.

"Ouch."

"Still, you must have learned to fight and use your biotics somewhere, and you look young, maybe a couple years younger than me."

"I'm turning 29 this year."

Her head snapped back. "You're only 29?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah, born in '82, why?"

"Nothing, just that you look much younger. I'm jealous," she shrugged.

I also shrugged, but otherwise kept silent. "Fine," she finally conceded, "be an ass." I could see her flash a quick smile before turning back around.

We hooked a right and found ourselves standing in-front of a pair of doors. I quickly flipped on the flashlight on my Predator and panned it above them, the words "Storage Room 1F" were labelled across the top.

Sarah placed her Pistol on the ground, retrieved a security card from her back pocket and tapped it on the electronic lock installed into the door. It didn't budge.

"It's locked," she said sheepishly, "guess we wasted our time, sorry".

I gestured for her to step aside. She grabbed her Predator off the ground and moved back a few feet, checking the corridors for hostiles as I moved up in-front of the door.

My amp sparked to life and wrapped my body in a shimmering, blue corona of biotic energy. I lifted one leg and drove a booted foot into one of the doors as hard as I could, my biotics increasing and enhancing the force behind my blow. The door nearly crumpled in half, creating an opening large enough for both Sarah and I to squeeze inside.

I signaled for her to stay put, then maneuvered inside the storage room. Predator out, I made a quick sweep, checking behind every corner and machine for anything that could try and kill us.

Satisfied that the room was reasonably secured, I waved at Sarah to come inside. She gingerly ducked into the room and began looking around for spare power cells while I kept an eye on the door and on the vents. I had watched Cade play too many sci-fi horror games for me to not expect something to burst through the vents and pull us into the walls. Also because I was intimately familiar with the finer points of Murphy's law.

Sarah made a small exclamation of triumph. I turned and saw her pull a stack of metallic cylinders the approximate length and diameter of a thermos from a storage locker. Her hands brushed over a switch located on the side of each power cell and they immediately began pulsing a soft blue light, not unlike the light that Corpsers emitted. A charge meter on the side of each power cell began lit up and an indicator began displaying the level of power remaining in each cell.

I saw Sarah turn on each power cell stored in the locker, her brow furrowed and lips silently moving as she made calculations in her head. Eventually, she pulled out a duffel bag and filled it with eight fuel cells. She gave me a thumbs-up and silently prepared to leave.

Finally, something had finally gone right for the first time since this mess started. I followed her back out into the corridor and, power cells in tow, we resumed our progress to the back-up generators.

"Four of these should be enough to run the back-up generators on low power for the next 6 hours. It'll be enough to restore some measure of life support and the emergency lighting, and the lights in all the major rooms should now be in power saving mode, meaning they'll be off but will turn on when we trip their motion sensors," she explained excitedly.

I gestured for her to hand me the bag, but she shook her head in refusal. "You need to be mobile enough to fight in-case we run into more of those things. All I can do is stand there and look pretty."

"Fair enough," I conceded. Sarah was turning into more and more of an asset. She had had the sense to grab back-ups just in-case we needed them. She had acquitted herself well during our rescue attempt and despite having lost her husband mere hours before had not suffered an extreme emotional breakdown that made her a security liability.

It could have been worse. I remember one time during a mission on Zorya, Cade was bit by some purple centipede-analogue during a raiding operation on a Blue Suns weapons depot and rendered feverishly incoherent. Not only did Percival and I have to outrun a platoon of angry mercenaries without long-range sniper support, we had to sidetrack to Cade's observation post was and haul his spiky ass back to our shuttle. I remember being fed up with the situation and simply killing the mercenaries when they stupidly decided that the best way to take down two Spectre operatives was to split up into smaller teams.

This was marginally better.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1839 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Secondary Engine Room_

 _1 hour, 39 minutes after the outbreak_

Ahead were the doors to the Secondary Engine Room. Nothing else had attacked us since we had departed the storage room we had found the power cells in, but nonetheless I loosened up my Talons in their sheaths and kept my Predator trained in-front of me. I had been a Spectre for a little over five years. I had a pretty good idea what was waiting for me in the room.

I stacked up behind the door, gesturing for Sarah to stay behind me. I cursed the lack of a tactical cloak on my shitty armor then palmed the door activation button and slid smoothly inside, Predator raised.

I hated when I was right. I saw a couple of engine technicians strewn around the back-up generators, a reservoir of blood pooling around their heads. My eyes swept around the room, making note of every single alcove, nook and cranny.

The Secondary Engine Room was maybe three decks tall and circular. It was big, like every other space in this bloody ship. The offline back-up generator sat in the center—a large, spherical machine with a multitude of conduits linking it to ports situated into the ceiling and the floor. I could see a number of slots that looked like they could hold the power cells that Sarah was currently toting and a cracked, damaged drive core sitting inside the translucent casing.

I signaled for her to step inside. She flinched at the sight of the technicians but didn't break stride on her way to the back-up generator.

She began inspecting the generator. "The back-up generator seems to be intact", she reported. "It looks like the saboteurs decoupled and destroyed the drive core, thankfully they didn't destroy the power cell adapter ports. I should have no problem coupling them to the generator."

She started to pull the power cells out of her duffel bag, but I held out a hand to stop her.

"Wait," I ordered.

She looked at me with her eyes wide. She didn't understand but obeyed me nonetheless.

I spun around and began firing my Predator at positions that I had made a mental note of. My first three shots hit nothing, but my fourth sparked off a kinetic barrier. Gunshots instantly erupted from the spot I had shot at. A tall male dressed in form-fitting black armor of make and manufacture that I did not recognize materialized as his tactical cloak fizzled out.

I erected a Barrier around Sarah and I, deflecting the saboteurs' gunshots. Three more figures de-cloaked around the room, all of them holding what I recognized to be silenced M-8 Avengers and clad in the same slim, form-fitting armor suit that the first saboteur had worn. Judging from their physical profiles, three of them were male while one was female, likely all human.

Together, they walked slowly towards Sarah and I, their fancy M-8 Avengers trained on us. Behind me, Sarah had aimed her Predator at the closest saboteur.

I holstered my pistol and used both hands to strengthen my Barrier. The saboteurs closed in around us, casually stepping over the technicians that the moment I had entered the room I knew they had killed. I exercised every ounce of my considerable will not to roll my eyes.

They must have thought they were fucking geniuses, leaving behind a group to ensure that no one else would power on the back-up generators – because no one would ever expect that, right? They must have thought that they were the Da Vinci's of espionage. They must have thought that they were already living in 2212, a group of big-brained, big-dicked assholes in fancy black armor with fancy black guns.

Except I got to see first-hand that they didn't have big brains and that they most certainly weren't going to be living in 2212. I heard three loud coughs erupt from somewhere above me and suddenly three of the saboteurs had perforated helmets, their kinetic barriers doing nothing to slow down the kinetic energy of an armor-piercing round fired from an M-98b Black Widow. The last saboteur began frantically scanning the room for the ghost who had murdered his comrades, firing indiscriminately into the shadows.

His rifle overheated clicked empty, which was pretty much the last thing that you wanted to hear when you were stuck in a room with two angry enemy Spectres. I dropped my Barrier and crossed the distance between us in four quick strides, immediately bringing me within close-quarters range with the increasingly desperate saboteur.

He pulled out a black M-3 Predator but my Predator was already in my hand. I fired a round into his gun, knocking it out of his grasp, before placing my gun beneath his chin and firing two more shots that shorted out his kinetic barrier and stunned him. I sent an arm into his chest, forcefully pushing him back a few feet. My fourth round went through the gap right between his armored boot and his shin greaves and my fifth went into the gap between his thigh armor and his knee-guard as he knelt down in pain. I kept my pistol trained at his head.

He ripped off his helmet, revealing a vaguely familiar face smiling at me. For a moment I hesitated, trying to place where I had seen him before.

In that moment's distraction I failed to see the saboteurs' hands disappear behind his back only to reappear with a grenade. His smile stretched wolfishly as he thumbed the activation trigger and lobbed it at me. Years of reflexes kicked in as my mind finally registered the grenade leaving his hand. I swiftly threw up my hands, erecting a spherical Barrier that encapsulated him entirely. The grenade Bounced off of my barrier and hit the deck with an innocent little clang, rolling nondescriptly back towards him.

The grin never left his face, not even as the grenade detonated and his body was torn to absolute shreds.

I lowered my pistol and let out a dispirited sigh, slightly disappointed that I wasn't going to get my 'dramatically-realize-who-the-saboteurs-were' moment and even more disappointed that I wasn't going to get to personally get to kick some saboteur ass.


	4. Chapter 4 - Enter the Turian

**Chapter 4: Enter the Turian**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1844 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Secondary Engine Room_

 _1 hour, 44 minutes after the outbreak_

I heard the tell-tale sizzling crackle that a tactical cloak made when it deactivated.

I looked over my shoulder and saw a suit of black, blue and silver Turian Ghost Infiltrator Armor shimmer into existence atop a raised catwalk three decks up. Stowing his beloved Black Widow on the mag strips affixed to his armor, Cade vaulted off the rails, slowing his descent with the miniature booster jets built into his armor and landing on the deck with barely a sound.

He removed his helmet, revealing his pale, silver face and dark blue tattoos. He dipped his head at Sarah, who was still slightly speechless at the ruthless and efficient manner with which he had dispatched our assailants, and walked towards me.

He held out a gloved hand which I quickly grabbed and pulled him into a brief hug. Neither of us said it but I knew that we were both immensely relieved to know that we had each survived.

I nodded towards the three bodies and the greasy pile of armor and flesh. "You thinking inside or outside?" I asked my fellow Spectre.

Cade pondered silently for a moment. Three of them were still clad in stealth-capable armor the likes of which I had never seen. Sleek, aerodynamic, with built-in tactical cloaks and decent kinetic barriers, they were definitely not cheap and most definitely not something your average run-of-the mill merc group would run around in, not even Cat-6 operatives or elite Eclipse mercenary specialists.

"Hard to tell, I've never seen that kind of armor before, but it could be something that SA R and D could come up with."

He walked over to one of the saboteurs he had shot in the face and nudged him with his boot.

"It's usually about 50/50 for us, what's the split right now?" he asked.

"I think its four-to-five in favor of outside, five-to-five if you count the rogue STG team back on Surkesh."

"Nah, those guys were retired, they count as outside. Let's assume that these guys are Systems Alliance then," he decided.

I frowned. Back during the Reaper War, an indoctrinated pro-human terrorist organization known as Cerberus had been instrumental in the near destruction and harvest of our entire galaxy by the Reapers. What had brought them so close to precipitating our defeat was the fact that they had had deep roots in almost every major Systems Alliance body of power. They had had spies, sleeper agents, and infiltrators in the highest levels of the Systems Alliance Navy, the Earth Government, and the Colonial Administration who fought Commander Shepard at every turn as she struggled to turn the tide against the Reapers.

In our experience, saboteurs generally fell into two categories. Category one was sabotage from the outside. Most often, a shadowy party acquired intermediary help to orchestrate acts of sabotage to cripple another party. Generally, those who fell within category one were low-to-mid level mercenary factions, bureaucrats, rogue military officers, etc. A politician looking to one-up his opponent might hire an Eclipse mercenary team or a Blue Suns spec-ops group to plant a dead prostitute or bomb a public assembly for example. Their sabotage was usually brutish and unrefined, relying more on firepower and force than finesse and careful planning.

The second category was sabotage from the inside. The espionage that Cerberus conducted during the Reaper War had been so particularly deadly because it had been in that category. Originally a pro-human survivalist paramilitary group, their human-first slogan and agenda quickly made them popular with a number of high-ranking military, political, and industrial figures who feared what the galaxy held in store for humans. The influence of these figures gave Cerberus an inside-track on planting a number of Cerberus spies and operatives in almost every level of humanity, biding their time, waiting to strike like a cobra when the Systems Alliance was weakest.

The last time the SSV Hippocrates had been planet-side was nearly eight months ago according to our briefings. No ships other than our shuttle had reportedly docked with it since then, which meant that if it were an outside saboteur group, they had to have boarded the last time the Hippocrates was docked and had to have stayed hidden that entire time –highly unlikely given the security on this ship.

That meant that the saboteurs had to have been already embedded in the ship's crew. As Cade and I now suspected, the saboteurs were not a third-party entity co-opted to destroy the Hippocrates. The importance of the work that SA R and D were conducting aboard the Hippocrates meant that the ship boasted state-of-the-art electronic firewalls, crew identification software, and military-grade weaponized defenses ran by dedicated Virtual Intelligences, making it near impervious to outside infiltration from some tacky mercenary group or a bunch of retired, rogue marines. As were the deep-cover Cerberus operatives that nearly destroyed humanity during the Reaper war, these saboteurs likely originated from somewhere within the Systems Alliance itself.

I sighed. If this was an inside job it meant that we couldn't trust the crew. The only people I could trust were Percival and Cade and maybe the marines.

Why any secret cell within the Systems Alliance would want to disrupt the Prometheus Project was not something I could answer with the clues that I had. It was likely that they could be trying to disrupt another project, or the entire SA R and D itself, but their timing coincided too conveniently with our arrival to be anything other than direct sabotage of the Prometheus Project.

"We could be dealing with a rogue cell within the SA R and D," Cade guessed. "To take down the Hippocrates' communications, the main and back-up generators and sabotage the Prometheus Project all simultaneously would take at least a team of fifteen to twenty saboteurs. The fact that they had the manpower to leave behind a whole fireteam here indicates that they may have even more than that."

Cade flapped his mandibles in the turian equivalent of a shrug and sighed. It was hard to tell sometimes what a turian was thinking solely by observing their facial features. Turians lacked facial muscles –their faces were essentially just a hard carapace. Their anatomical design meant they were incapable of smiling, frowning, furrowing their brows. With their inability to display what humans would call subconscious facial body language, a turian to an uneducated observer would seem perpetually emotionless, passive, or disinterested.

But I had known Cade for a long time. Like all turians, the way they moved their mandibles were a reliable analogue for basic human body language such as shrugging or getting embarrassed. Cade, however, was tapping his trigger guard against his armored thigh like a nervous tic, something that he had picked up from Percival and I. It was something we all did when we were nervous. Like me, he was afraid of getting stabbed or shot in the back by crew we thought that we could trust. Stuff like that tended to seriously complicate a mission.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, Operative Kitiarian. That was quite the entrance you made," smiled Sarah. Her greeting knocked Cade out of his trance. He then turned to her and gave the turian equivalent of a grin.

"Please, Cade will do," he replied. He jerked his head over to where I stood. "Is this oaf treating you okay?"

"Can't complain, havn't been violently murdered yet," Sarah shrugged. Cade nodded to her then turned back towards me.

"Hey, by the way, really digging the sleeveless look. Very macho," he joked as he jabbed a gloved talon at my arm.

"Did you scratch it, Kitiarian?"

He rolled his eyes and unclipped a duffel bag from the back of his armor.

"No, I didn't scratch it. You're welcome by the way."

I grabbed the bag from him, a genuine smile breaking out on my face for the first time since I boarded this damn ship. I motioned for Sarah to begin installing the power cells and began stripping out of the commandeered armor.

"So," Cade asked as I began pulling on my microweave undersuit, "how did you know that I was watching?"

"I wasn't sure. Thought you might be at the Data Archives but I assumed that once the power went out, you'd head here." I started putting on my armor plates one by one, reveling in the feeling of being reunited with my own personalized Ariake Technologies armor set and utterly relieved at finally being able to ditch that Dick-lon Industries shit.

"Yeah," he confirmed, "once the power went out I headed here. I snuck in and noticed the dead techs and figured that the saboteurs had left behind a team to ensure that no one else reactivated the back-up generator. Been silent and stealthed ever since, keeping one eye on the Sabs while I waited for you to make your way here."

"I could have handled them myself," I shrugged. Cade knew better than to dispute my claim.

I clipped my appropriated M-3 Predator to my thigh and loaded my custom M-3 Predator with Disruptor ammunition before clipping it onto my other thigh. "I take it you encountered what used to be the crew, then."

Cade nodded, falling silent. I noticed a few new scratches on his typically immaculately-kept armor. Our eyes met and we exchanged a silent look of understanding.

"I'm telling you, in all my years as a Spectre and in the Legion, I've never seen anything like this, what are these things?"

I shook my head and sighed. "None of us really had much time to ask, we were pretty busy avoiding getting stabbed. It could be a leftover Reaper self-defense mechanism but no one reported anything like this during the Reaper War."

I had seen reports on Reaper husking processes. The Reapers had possessed the capability to turn organic beings into synthetic soldiers for their ground invasions, it was how they produced the bulk of their ground forces. But the way that the creature that had been Dr. Singh had instantly transformed that marine was nothing like what they had seen during the War. This seemed more like a virus or a parasite, maybe something in the Crawlers.

My mind flashed back to the start of the Outbreak. The Reaper core turned on, a bolt of red light had shot out of it and hit the centrifuge that the head scientists had been tinkering with prior to the incident. I remember that greyish-silver liquid shooting out, hitting the doctors and almost hitting me.

"Hey, Sarah. Do you know what these things are?" Cade called out.

Sarah set down the power cell she had been installing and wiped her hands on her coat. She pondered briefly for a moment before tilting her head at Cade.

"If I had to say, they might be some variant of the Reaper troops we saw during the War. Their differing appearance and means of procreation from the original variants could be an unintentional side effect of a corrupted creation process. Perhaps the Reaper Core was damaged or rewritten when Shepard activated the Crucible," Sarah hypothesized. I hadn't considered that, to this day we still don't really know what happened that day Shepard ended the war.

Her eyes dropped to the floor and she went quiet for a moment. "Whatever they are, we need to stop them. I won't let Paul's death be in vain. We need to get to the Data Archives, stop this outbreak, and stop what's happening on Earth and Thessia, it's all connected somehow, I know it," she said adamantly before resuming her installation of the power cells.

Cade and I stood in silence for a moment. There wasn't a doubt in our minds that what was on this ship could destroy whole colonies worse than what was currently happening on earth.

"Did you encounter any turian Corpsers along the way?" I asked Cade. I slipped on my gauntlets and sealed them. I ran a quick diagnostic on my omni-tool to ensure that my kinetic barriers and temperature regulation were activated and began clipping the remainder of my sticky grenades onto my utility belt.

Cade's eyes widened slightly at the name that I had chosen for the baseline variant of those monstrosities. "No, mostly humans. However I had eyes on a few salarians and asari."

"Krogan too," I reported. It was weird that neither of us had seen any turian Corpsers considering the fact that they made up a significant portion of the ships' security detail. "There's also Changers—bigger Corpsers with tubes that can directly transform a victim—and a really big, nasty looking motherfucker called the Chimera. It's basically a giant, wingless metal dragon made up of changed corpses."

"Sounds nasty. Percival?"

"He took the marines and a few survivors and headed towards the Bridge. He's going to establish a strongpoint and triage for ship survivors."

I inspected my helmet for damages and cracks. Once I was satisfied that it was in good condition, I clipped it onto my back and removed my prized Snakebite from the bag.

"Good to know he's still kicking," Cade replied.

I ran a critical eye over my Snakebite, checking the optics, checking the heat sink, checking the ammunition block, checking the finish, basically checking every inch to ensure that Cade had not harmed it.

I heard a loud jolt as the back-up generator turned back on. Sarah whooped in joy as dim emergency lights began powering up all around the Secondary Engine Room, bathing everything in thin, fluorescent light.

"Good job, Sarah," I congratulated her. She grinned at me and began searching for a safe place to stash the spare power cells.

Cade sighed and rubbed his fringe. "So we've got what a ship full of homicidal, synthetic space zombies and a bunch of assholes in fancy armor making shit worse."

He stepped over to the bodies of the three saboteurs and removed their perforated helmets. "Anyone you recognize?"

"Nah dude, there's a fist-sized hole in each of their faces. I thought almost recognized the fourth, but that was before a grenade went off and turned him into ground chuck."

Cade looked sheepishly at me for a moment. "Meera was a bit overeager," he apologized. "Did you run into any more survivors?"

"One," I ground through clenched teeth.

"What happened to her?"

"She died," I simply stated.

Cade didn't say anything else and instead began taking pictures of the dead saboteurs with his omni-tool. We would need all the intelligence we could gather if we were going to do a little Systems Alliance housecleaning after this clusterfuck.

I shook my head and began unwrapping a few of the ration bars I kept in my utility pouch. I wolfed down the first two in about two bites each before taking a swig from my canteen and starting in on a third. I would need every ounce of energy I could get if we were going to make it to the Data Archives and then the Bridge in one piece.

Thankfully they were made by some private corporation and weren't the standard, shit-tasting ration bars that the Systems Alliance gave their grunts. I understood the rationale behind the taste of their their ration bars. We had the technology to replicate and synthesize almost any flavor to near perfection. However, if you made 900-calorie ration bars that tasted like angel sex, sooner or later you'd have a bunch of fat marines.

Sarah finished stowing the power cells and walked over to where I was currently stuffing my face. She looked at me with a bemused expression on her face before stooping to grab one of the M-8 Avengers off of a dead Sab. Cade and I both cocked an eyebrow at her. Well, technically only I did, since Cade didn't have eyebrows.

"You know how to use that thing?" I asked skeptically.

Without answering, she pointed it at a door on the other side of the room marked "Data Archives" and fired a 10-round burst. I squinted closely. Had to say, the grouping wasn't half bad.

Cade must have agreed, because he gave her a turian salute and began walking towards the door.

"No," she responded. "But five years of working with alien tech tends to leave you with fantastically steady hands." Without waiting for my reply, she also began walking towards the door.

"At least grab the one with the largest ammo block left in it!" I called after her. I shook my head. Steady hands didn't mean shit when you don't know how to change an ammunition block or insert a new heatsink.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1904 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 26D_

 _2 hour, 4 minutes after the outbreak_

Turning on the back-up generators had not drastically improved the lighting situation aboard the ship, although Sarah had assured me that rooms and equipment would be more or less fully operational. The dim emergency light strips made active by the generator did little to dispel the heavy darkness that smothered the corridors, and although life support was now partially activated a thick, greyish smog still seemed to blanket the air.

Cade clipped Meera onto his back and unslung a sleek, dark-blue M-15 Vindicator Battle Rifle. Boasting a 5-round burst function rather than the full-auto capabilities of the Avenger, wielders of the M-15 Vindicator relied on accuracy and precision rather than raw firepower. He further loaded it with armor-piercing ammunition, increasing the chance that he could kill one of those Corpsers in a single burst.

I took point while he covered the rear with Sarah in the middle, rifles sweeping back and forth. Cade and I did our best to sync our footsteps to minimize the sound we made, something we commonly did during stealth missions. Schematics indicated that there was a pedestrian elevator a few dozen meters away that we could take up to deck Seven and the Data Archives.

"Sarah," Cade asked quietly, "if it isn't classified, do you mind telling me what your role in the Prometheus Project was?"

Sarah glanced over at him, understandably reluctant to share what could be classified information. Eventually she must have decided that if she wanted to get off this ship alive, it was in her best interests to share as much as she knew with the people most capable of helping her do so.

"Paul, my husband, brought me in to develop the mini-crucibles we used to jumpstart the Reaper-Core," she began, "I graduated Summa Cum Laude at the University of Terra on Bekenstein and did my dissertation on the modification of precursor alien civilization energy sources for human use. When I was initially brought on, we were still figuring out how to turn on the Reaper Cores we had-"

"Wait, plural?" I interjected.

"Yes, the Alliance managed to salvage a number of Reaper Cores off Earth and a few other planets. We stopped once the phenomenon started spreading, but a large number of cores were removed from derelict Reapers for scientific examination. We were trying to figure out how to halt or even reverse the phenomenon."

My skin crawled at the thought of these things appearing everywhere. Whole colonies could be wiped out in hours or days. Their method of reproduction were equally if not more brutal than the Reapers had used, both physically and psychologically.

During the Reaper War you knew that the Marauder or Husk you were shooting at only might have been your friend and fellow soldier, but with these things you'd know for sure. These Corpsers and Changers largely retained identifiable facial features despite all the embedded metal plates, tubing, metal teeth and arm-spikes. Fuck my life.

"Anyways," she continued, "at first we didn't know how to turn them on, but then I was perusing reports on the Crucible during the war. It was arguably the most sophisticated piece of technology ever created by human and alien hands. Back then, we weren't sure how it worked, only that dozens or hundreds of harvested species before us had added to its design, hoping that someday there would come a cycle that could fully make use of the Crucible to stop the Reapers."

"During the final stages of the war, some scientists noticed that reports of the Crucible's activation during the War were linked to huge spikes in dark energy. They hypothesized that the Crucible wasn't a weapon against the Reapers in a destructive sense, but rather a massive energy source. Shepard's report on the discovery of the Catalyst seemed to support their hypothesis."

"We needed to turn on the Reaper Core's in order to study the phenomenon. We tried fission, fusion, element zero, everything. However, during my Ph.D dissertation I discovered that it was possible to adapt the Crucible to become a potentially variable energy source for human tech. It wasn't until after I presented my dissertation to the Systems Alliance and the Council that we were able to develop the mini-Crucibles. I managed to replicate and change the dark energy wave that it produced so that it would activate rather than disable the Reaper Cores."

I could see tears had begun to slide down her face, her voice had become progressively more distraught as her explanation continued. I had a feeling that I knew what conclusions her mind were leading her to.

"I can't help but think that this is somehow my fault, that somehow the Crucibles I developed were-"

Cade stepped forward and with surprising gentleness drew her into his chest. Sarah wrapped her arms around his armored torso and began sobbing openly into his chest. I watched impassively. I'd be lying if I had said that the thought that somehow the mini-crucible's had been responsible for damaging the Reaper Core and starting the Outbreak hadn't crossed my mind.

"Did I kill him? Did I kill Paul? Did I kill everyone on this ship?" she silently wailed.

"It wasn't your fault," I firmly stated. I suddenly remembered the strange silver-gray liquid.

"Sarah, in the activation chamber, there was a centrifuge that Dr. Landry and Singh were loading test tubes filled with a silver substance. Do you know what was in those test-tubes?"

"N-No, not specifically," she stammered. "Ishmael and Rabhu mainly handled that, I think they said it was just leftover construction fluid in the Reaper Core. The Reapers harvested captured intelligent, space-faring species, converting them into a multi-purpose synthetic-organic construction fluid which they used to build Reaper warships. I believe that when they found the Core, they separated the fluid still found inside because they didn't want any adverse interactions."

"I don't think the issue was with your mini-crucibles."

I briefly described what I had seen in the Activation chamber. Sarah was open-mouthed while Cade pondered silently.

"It moved? We've never had reports of it exhibiting any signs of movement. Commander Shepard's reports aboard the Collector Base stated that the fluid was non-interactive, just a construction material like bricks or mortar that they used to build more Reapers."

"There's a lot about the Reapers that we still don't know," I said grimly.

The corridor opened up into a longer and larger hall about 10 meters wide and 30 meters long. The ceiling was a bit taller in this part of the ship and I could see doors lining both sides of the room with name plates affixed to the doors.

"Wait," Sarah interrupted. "Our personal offices were here, is it okay if I stop and grab something?"

Cade and I exchanged a quick glance, what harm could it do? Might even boost her morale.

I nodded to Sarah. "Sure, is there any relevant data in here that might not be in the Data Archives?"

She pondered for a moment before shaking her head. "Unlikely, all our data entries and reports regarding the Prometheus Project are produced electronically and instantly uploaded to the Data Archives, physical printouts weren't allowed, they were considered a security risk."

"Alright, make it as fast as possible. Do you have the access codes to all the offices?"

"No, only mine. You could try breaking down the doors, but they're reinforced to prevent unauthorized access."

Sarah walked up to an office room that I presumed was hers and tapped a code into the electronic keypad. The door opened with a slight hydraulic hiss and she disappeared inside.

Cade sighed and walked over to her door. He leaned his Vindicator against the frame, placed his armored back against the wall beside it and slid down, landing in a seated position with his legs splayed out before him.

I padded over and adopted the same position, momentarily dropping the inner barriers that I had built to keep my fatigue, fear, and pain at bay. For a second I allowed myself to fully accept the gravity of the situation that we were currently in – that we were stuck on a ship with a horde of synthetic-organic killing machines trying to infect us. I closed my eyes and sighed.

Cade tilted his head towards me. In the weak corona of the emergency lights he looked a lot older than his 25 years. His silvery complexion was almost white in this light, his blue face paint a stark contrast that made his face seem more gaunt than it actually was.

"So Percival's doing alright?" he asked with concern.

I tried to smile a bit to reassure him, but the end result was a grimace. "Yeah," I answered. "We were surrounded by those things outside Containment Airlock 1. What used to be Dr. Singh was about to tear us a new one when Percival suddenly came running out of the Prometheus Labs, throwing inferno grenades and shit. Guy did a superhero leap onto his back and stabbed him in the neck with his omni-blade."

Cade's eyes lit up and he crowed with laughter. "Oh my god, he did the same thing back on Tuchanka to that krogan warlord."

"Because you're a bad fucking influence, dude," I shot at him. "You claim to love your sniper rifle more than life, yet every chance you get I've seen you use your booster jets to propel yourself onto the back of some poor sap and jam your Talon through his neck."

"Style points," Cade said in his defense. "Plus you do the exact same thing, except instead of booster jets you de-cloak out of nowhere before you do it, or you Stasis the poor shit."

"Oh yeah, remember that batarian slaver a few weeks ago?" I chuckled.

"You put him in Stasis, then tripped on a chair and almost fell on your face while moving towards him. The last thing that crossed his mind was that he was about to be murdered by some biotic klutz," Cade laughed.

I had no response in regards to his claim that we both equally loved knives and sniper rifles. In my own defense, if you had the ability to basically turn invisible, virtually immobilize an enemy and stab him whenever you wanted, you'd probably do it all the time too against bad guys, especially child-slaver bad guys.

We both chuckled for a bit before growing quiet. I hadn't heard from Percival or the marines for more than an hour, Cade hadn't heard from him for even longer. Out of the three of us, Percival had been wounded, shot, stabbed, and blown up the most. Not from a lack of skill, far from it, but due to his deep-seated need to put himself in harm's way for anyone who needed it.

Sometimes it got him in trouble, and always either Cade or I were there to bail him out. I prayed that he hadn't done anything stupid on his way to the Bridge, like risk himself to rescue a stray cat or something.

We heard a sniffle coming from inside Sarah's office. Cade nodded towards me before standing back up and shouldering his Vindicator, scanning for hostiles. I stood up as well and softly walked inside.

The office wasn't terribly big, maybe three meters by four meters, with much of it being taken up by a desk littered with papers and files and several filing cabinets that ran from the floor to about chest-high. I saw a potted plant in one corner and a display that took up an entire wall, now powered off.

Sarah sat at her desk, her hands holding a framed photo, not a holo-still, but an actual photo printed on glossy, tree-based paper the likes of which were made popular during the 20th and 21st century but rendered antiquated with the invention and widespread adoption of holo-stills.

The photo depicted her and her husband with a young boy of about five years of age with a mess of blond hair and a wide smile held in her arms. From the looks of it they seemed to be at the beach. She held it reverently with one hand while the other was pressed against her mouth.

I walked to the side, careful to keep myself in her peripheral vision and within a respectful distance.

I gestured at the photo. "Is that your kid?"

She brushed a few tears from her eyes before nodding. "His name's John," she said huskily, "I had him right before I started my Ph.D, he's with my parents right now on the Citadel."

"Father?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Some asshole I met in university. I don't talk to him anymore and he doesn't care about us. Paul has done an amazing job being a father, John thinks the world of him."

She set down the photo and buried her head in her arms. "I don't know what I'm going to tell him," she sobbed.

"Tell him the truth. Usually that works best," I lied. "Tell him his father wanted to save Earth, to save the galaxy, and that he was willing to give his life to do so. But right now, all you need to focus on is making it out of here so you can tell him yourself."

I gently laid a hand on her shoulder, but refrained from saying anything more. She seemed to find that acceptable. After a few more sniffles she picked up the frame and removed the photo, gently placing it in the breast-pocket of her lab coat. She brushed away the last few tears from her eyes and grabbed her M-8 Avenger off her desk.

"I'm ready to go," she firmly stated before walking out the office to stand near Cade. I let out a heavy sigh and took a moment to glance over the office again, checking to see if there was anything that I might have missed that might be important.

I had just walked out of the office when I heard a loud clang. A grated vent built into the side of the hall burst open and the sinewy, twisted form of an asari Corpser tumbled out. Before I had time to shout a warning it coiled and sprang at Cade, tackling him to the ground with an angry shriek.

The Corpser opened her gaping, slathering jaws and began snapping at Cade pinned beneath her. Taken unawares, Cade had one arm pinned beneath her while his other was pressed furiously against her throat, keeping her razor sharp teeth at bay.

Before I could line up a shot with my Snakebite the depths of the shattered vent came alive with red and blue lights. Two more Corpsers pulled themselves over the lip, catching bits of their remaining flesh on the shredded grating and leaving behind a trail of blue and red gore.

I drilled the first Corpser through the skull, the powerful Snakebite round punching through the half-formed metal plates embedded in her face and blowing out the back of her skull in a vibrant shatter of red matter and sparks. I cocked the cooling lever while I drew a bead on the second one, catching it right in the chest as it made to leap towards Sarah. The round completely tore open its chest cavity. In the dim lighting I could see nothing that resembled the internal organs of the human it had once been –just a slurry of viscera and metal tubes and what might have been a human heart at one point.

Cade head-butted the Corpser on top of him, somehow avoiding her glistening, serrated metal teeth. Having bought himself some room he triggered the booster jets installed on his armor, launching him and the asari Corpser sideways into the air.

The asari Corpser lost her grip on him, falling onto her back where she lay shrieking and snarling as she tried to reorient herself. Cade landed a couple of meters away, rolling for a few feet before landing in a crouched position, one arm splayed behind him with the other on the floor steadying himself.

Cade snarled back at the Corpser, ripping a Talon combat knife from his armor and holding it in a reverse grip. Triggering his booster jets again, Cade launched himself at the mutated abomination, this time with him crashing into her and him on top. With one arm pressing the Corpser's bladed limb down, he drove his Talon hard through her skull. Her twitching and screeching immediately ceased.

Cade got up and wiped the blade on what was left of her scientist's uniform before returning it to his sheath. He suddenly flinched as the Corpser at his feet and the ones I shot began twitching and convulsing. Their stomachs burst open from the inside as the spider-like metal Crawlers began tearing their way out.

Before we could react, a wave of rifle fire destroyed them all as Sarah let loose with her M-8 Avenger.

Things finally fell silent, except for the heavy breathing coming from Cade.

"You know, this is the first time in my life that I didn't enjoy having her on top," he quipped. He stooped to grab his M-15 Vindicator that the asari Corpser had knocked out of his hands with her initial ambush and shouldered it.

"Can we please get the fuck out of here," Sarah calmly asked. She backed a few steps away from the fallen Corpsers but otherwise swept the hall with her rifle.

I nodded and moved towards the elevator at the end of the hall. As my hand moved towards the button, Cade called for me to halt.

"Wait! Remember Korlus-?"

"What?" I asked, but it was already too late. My hands had already hit the elevator button.

Immediately a panel flickered to life beside the elevator, the number 25 dimly illuminated. After about 10 seconds it changed to 24. What a slow-ass elevator, must have been the emergency power situation.

"Korlus, remember Korlus?" Cade repeated.

"Korlus? What – oh," I suddenly recalled.

A number of loud clangs reverberated behind us. I turned and saw half a dozen more vents tear open about thirty meters away at the very entrance of the office hall. Immediately Corpsers of every species began pulling themselves out of them, the lights emanating from their bodies casting a grisly sheen on their warped, deformed features.

Cade and Sarah immediately began opening fire with their rifles, Cade tearing the head off of the first one with an accurate burst from his Vindicator while Sarah pummeled another into bits with hers. I snapped up my Snakebite and drilled a shot through another, punching through its gaping mouth and blowing off the killing arm of the one behind it, eliciting an ear-piercing screech.

"Korlus!" Cade snapped, "We don't let you touch elevator buttons anymore, because for some reason every time you do the elevator always starts at the furthest possible floor —," he raged as he put another two bursts into the open jaws of a roaring krogan Corpser.

"—And then we're always stuck waiting for it while a bunch of assholes try to kill us!" He finished as he slammed a new heat into his Vindicator and resumed firing.

I didn't bother apologizing. Sarah was busy laying down a stream of suppressive fire, slowing their advance. The Corpsers had covered about a third of the distance down the hall.

When her rifle overheated, I gently brushed her aside, blue flames shimmering up and down my armor. The familiar metallic ozone taste that summoning my biotics left in the back of my throat intensified as I threw my left arm forward. My amp sparked as I conjured a massive, swirling Singularity that ripped a whole wave of Corpsers off their feet.

I ripped a sticky grenade off my belt and whipped it at the suspended, snarling pack of reanimated flesh and machinery. It detonated in a bright blue explosion that rained assorted deformed appendages around the large hall.

I whipped my head to look at the floor indicator. The panel now indicated that the elevator was on deck 19. I didn't need to look at the giant, painted 'One' printed beside the elevator. I knew exactly which deck we were on and I knew exactly how much of a sadistic fuck that the god of chance could be. Fucking Korlus.

Beyond us more and more Corpsers were stumbling into the hall. A dozen had pulled their way through the vents, while what seemed like dozens more appeared from various side corridors to join their screeching brethren.

"Fire in waves," I ordered. "Sarah, you first, then Cade and I. Grenades when they get halfway down the hall."

Cade and Sarah nodded, and together we began firing in alternate waves, ensuring that that we had a continuous wave of fire pushing back the oncoming horde. Corpsers of every transformed species would start making a beeline for us once they had entered the hall but Sarah would lay down hammering Avenger fire that would scythe through their legs, dropping them to the ground and tripping their brethren behind them. Cade and I—with our slower-firing weapons—would do our best to pull of headshots or center-of-mass shots on the fallen Corpsers.

"Buy us some breathing room, Cade!" I ordered.

Cade tossed a pair of Arc grenades that detonated and sent a mass of electric shocks through the front ranks of the Corpsers, stunning them in place. I followed up with another one of my sticky grenades right in the middle of the stunned pack. The ensuing explosion wiped out a more than a half-dozen of the Corpsers and what seemed like hundreds of Crawlers, buying us another few meters and another few moments.

The elevator was now on deck 5. We had to hold them off for another minute.

I heard the telltale click of an expended ammunition block and the hiss of a rifle's overheat mechanism. Sarah threw her empty Avenger as hard as she could, hitting a Corpser in the face and causing him to stumble. I pulled the spare Predator Rake had given me and pressed it into her hands, which she immediately began to fire into the crowd of approaching Corpsers.

The elevator had just hit deck 3 when my head was suddenly filled with faint, indiscernible whispers and that familiar, ominous chittering.

A large spike of pain suddenly erupted in my head, causing me to gasp out loud. My rifle stopped firing as I grabbed my head with one hand, dropping to my knees from the intense pressure in my head.

"Cloud!" Cade screamed, "What's wrong?!"

I tried to stagger to my feet but failed, falling to the ground with a clatter while painfully trying to keep my eyes open. The whispers in my head intensified in volume and the pressure built and built until I was certain that my head would pop off my shoulders if it grew any worse.

Through my tear-filled eyes, I saw the Chimera squeeze its way through the hall, its four thinner forelimbs pulling its massive, sinewy torso behind it. Any Corpser caught in its way was crushed under its immense, twisted bulk.

Through the debilitating pressure and increasingly loud whispering, I heard a ding behind me. The elevator doors opened and I could feel a hand under my arm pulling me backwards. I felt my boot brush against the open doors and looked up to see Cade standing above me, one gloved hand hooked underneath my right shoulder while the other held a M-6 Carnifex heavy pistol that spat thunderbolts.

The Chimera pulled its way into the hall, its whip-like synthetic-organic tail brushing aside any remaining Corpsers while its lone pincer flexed back and forth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sarah hammering on the door controls as hard as possible while Cade shifted fire onto the massive behemoth, his Carnifex rounds bouncing inconsequentially off the Chimera's massive red, metal headplate. It shrugged off the heavy rounds and began stomping its way towards us.

Just as it was about to reach one clawed, rotten forelimb into the elevator, the doors closed and I could feel the gentle shift in gravity that indicated that the elevator was rising. Sarah let out a heavy sigh of relief before slumping down onto the elevator floor, while Cade had re-holstered his Carnifex and re-equipped his Vindicator, keeping it trained on the doors.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

"Fucking Korlus," echoed Cade.


	5. Chapter 5 - Kantian Revelations

**Chapter 5: Kantian Revelations**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1921 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Elevator 5F, Currently en-route to Deck 7_

 _2 hours, 21 minutes after Outbreak_

"Fucking Korlus," Cade swore again.

As the elevator carried us further and further away from the hulking metallic monstrosity I felt the pressure begin to alleviate in my head and the whispers recede. Once they had both faded I let out a sigh of relief and raised one hand to pull myself up with the metal railing in the elevator.

My hands were trembling, probably a by-product of my extremely close shave with death. The memory of the gruesome forelimb that had once been Dr. Veers' brother, with its twin rings embedded in the horn, was seared into my brain. If I closed my eyes I could see it grasping, reaching towards me.

"At least there isn't any music this time?" I joked.

Cade cocked his mandibles. "What?"

"Nothing," I responded. I clipped my Snakebite to my back armor plate and dug both of my palms into my eyes, willing the memory of those whispers and that intense pressure into the distant past.

I had no idea what happened to me back in that hall. I had never had any hints of schizophrenia or any other mental disorder or even moderate or severe head trauma for that matter, and yet I had been suddenly hit with a headache that had literally brought me to my knees and ghostly whispers that had left me incapacitated. If Cade hadn't been there to pull me out I might have very well died, torn to shreds by that fucking monster.

"Cade, that thing, I think it's hunting us."

Cade grabbed my arm. "Forget that thing for a minute, what happened to you down there?" he rasped.

His faces was inches from mine and I could see that his eyes alight with concern. "Spirits, you started yelling out and just dropped, I thought you had been hit somehow."

I sighed and shook my head. "I don't know, my head started hurting mid-firefight and I started hearing these whispers."

"What kind of whispers? What were they saying?" he prompted further.

"No clue, I couldn't make out what they were saying. I'm not even sure I recognized the language…"

Sarah gently grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards her. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, but I don't think that that satisfied her because she detached the flashlight attachment off of her Avenger and turned back towards me.

"Mind if I check?"

I nodded again. She gently grabbed the side of my head and tilted it down so she could shine the flashlight into my eyes. She moved the flashlight back and forth, making note of my pupillary response. She must have been satisfied because after a few moments she stopped, her body language looking a little more relieved and the lines of worry on her face slowly fading.

"Any history of migraines? Mental Illness? Even bad headaches?"

I shook my head and answered honestly "No. This is the first time I've ever felt anything like that."

She pursed her lips and looked down for a moment before resuming eye contact. "Pupillary response seems fine, I thought that maybe you had suffered a concussion during the fight. You sure you have no prior history?"

"I'm sure. And don't you have a Ph.D instead of an M.D?" I joked.

She ignored my jab and continued her diagnosis. "Any recent gaps in memory?" she pushed further.

"I wish."

That seemed to satisfy her. "Alright, could just have been a sudden tension headache or an acute stress reaction, I can't have you going postal on me, Spectre," Sarah smiled.

She patted my arm and re-attached the lamp to her Avenger. Cade and I shared one more pointed look in which I wordlessly assured him that I was fully operational. He nodded, also apparently satisfied by Sarah's quick diagnosis. He needed me and I needed him if we were going to make it to the Data Archives and off this ship in one piece. I pulled my Snakebite back out while he checked the ammunition block on his Vindicator. With a light chime, the elevator display panel flickered to indicate that we had arrived at Deck 7 and the doors slowly opened.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1922 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 45C_

 _2 hours, 22 minutes after Outbreak_

The elevator doors slide open and we stepped out into another dimly lit hall virtually identical to the one we had just come from. Long and rectangular, with half a dozen reinforced office doors on each side, this hall differed from the one we had just came from in one prominent aspect.

I surveyed the room, staring impassively at the gore, viscera and blood of all shades and colors that coated the floor and walls. Sarah stifled a retch while Cade and I tightened our grip on our weapons. I stepped forward, my boots leaving footprints in a pool of drying turian blood. I saw a bloody, green salarian handprint smeared onto the elevator buttons behind us.

A cleanly-severed head lying in the middle of the hall caught my attention. I walked over, taking a knee in a pool of purple asari blood and gingerly picked up the gruesome fixture. I closed her eyes—taking a moment to banish the sight of those blue orbs rolled slightly backwards into her skull—and flipped it upside-down to study the wound. Behind me Sarah gagged, but otherwise her and Cade moved up to take note of what I had found so interesting

The wound on the neck was cleanly, almost surgically cut, with no immense tissue damage that characterized the wounds that I'd seen Corpsers inflict. None of the appendages on the average Corpser seemed capable of severing a head from a torso, maybe their metal spines but I had yet to see those things be utilized as weapons of some kind. Both Crawlers and Changers lacked the capability to cause such wounds also, and I doubt the Chimera would have left such clean, precise wounds.

"Those don't look like it was caused by these creatures," Cade commented, apparently sharing my thoughts.

I looked up, following his sightline. Strewn around the hall were a few other severed limbs. I put the head down and made my way over to what looked like a turian arm, picking it up and observing the wound.

"It's cleanly cut… maybe some kind of new variant that we haven't seen yet?" I suggested.

"Maybe, but considering the menagerie we've encountered so far I'd hate to meet whatever could do that," he pointed at the severed asari head.

"Guys," Sarah interrupted, "Don't you think it's strange that there aren't any bodies here?"

I glanced around the hallway. Aside from a number of severed limbs and appendages, there were no actual corpses, just what appeared to be litres and litres of blood.

"Not terribly strange. I'm guessing the bodies were converted afterwards. The unchanged nature of these body parts suggests that the wounds were inflicted before the victims were transformed," I answered.

Cade nudged a severed human arm with his booted foot. "Hey, I'm going to go out on a 'limb' here and say that we probably want to keep moving, incase whatever did this comes back," he grinned. What an asshole.

We moved out of the hall and into the pedestrian corridor as fast as we could. Through the dried mosaic of alien and human blood on the wall I could make out the words "Data Archives" and a giant, blue arrow.

"I can't wait to get off this ship and go home," Sarah moaned.

"That is very optimistic of you," laughed Cade. She shot him a dirty glance at his response behind his back and rolled her eyes at him.

"Where's home for you?" I asked her.

"The Citadel. After I received my Ph.D I moved into a nice little apartment overlooking the Presidium with John and Paul. I haven't been home in eight months… haven't seen John in nine," she said sadly.

"The Presidium, huh? Swanky."

Sarah smiled and tilted her head to me. "Paul and I wanted the absolute best for John. He absolutely loves it there, loves meeting all the aliens and all the water and all the parks…"

Her eyes misted a bit as she continued on. "He once jumped into the Presidium lake, said he wanted to see if there was fish inside it. Paul had to wade in and rescue him. A passing C-sec officer caught them both lying on the edge of the lake, soaking wet and laughing their heads off. I managed to talk him out of giving us a ticket. We went back home, changed, then afterwards headed back out to this tiny little shoppe for hot chocolate," she reminisced.

"John loved water, loved the beach, loved lakes…," Sarah finished with a tiny, sad smile.

Cade and I listened silently, neither of us having anything to add or wanting share any of our own memories. If you were a Spectre, chances are most—if not all—your memories were not ones you wanted to remember, at least while sober. Cade was tight-lipped about his role in the Palaven Rebellions despite having turians line up in droves to shake his hand every time he visited Palaven, and I spoke even less than he did about my own past—even with my two best friends.

We continued silently, the blood and gore ending where the corridor leading to the Data Archives began. I took the lead with my rifle raised, Sarah a few steps behind me and with Cade to the rear. We cautiously pressed on, wary of any potential ambushes as we travelled closer and closer to our objective. We passed a few more locked doors and branching corridors before the doors came into view.

"There it is," Sarah pointed out. She tightened her grip on her borrowed M-8 Avenger and quickened her pace. Cade and I followed suit, weapons raised and alert for any potential ambushes. I strained my ears as we moved closer, trying my best to detect any footsteps that could belong to a stealthed observer. The door grew larger and more ominous as we approached it, a feminine, bloody palm-print on its activation panel.

We were now a few meters from the door so I gestured for Sarah to stop. Cade and I moved up, taking up flanking positions on either side of the door. We quickly double-checked our guns before I signed to him to enter first. He nodded and palmed the door switch. The hydraulics whirred and the door slid open with a silent, innocuous hiss.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1934 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 45C_

 _2 hours, 34 minutes after Outbreak_

The doors slid open with a hiss and we waited for a count of three, just in case some trigger-happy saboteur decided to shoot as soon as the doors opened. Cade, possessing the better close-range weapon, breached first, silent as a serpent with his Vindicator out and legs bent in a slight crouch so that I could fire over him if necessary.

He did a quick panoramic sweep of the large room before moving off to the right. I followed next, padding softly into the room with my Snakebite out and my Predator loose in its holster. I shifted left, covering Cade's left flank and making mental notes of all the possible locations that a stealthed saboteur could ambush us from.

The room was a defender's nightmare. The Data Archives were essentially a raised, circular catwalk with a number of doors surrounding it. Data servers towered from the ground to the ceiling all around the edges of the room, the status lights on their servers casting a dim blue glow eerily similar to the light that Corpsers gave off.

The servers provided plenty of cover for potential assailants and threats and increased the number of attack angles we had to watch for. Four wide walkways branched from the circular catwalk and converged onto a central platform that contained a towering holo-terminal with a slew of buttons and dials on it. Around the central platform and the holo-terminal, the floor was sunk a few meters into the ground and was covered in a thick web of conduits, cables, and piping.

I de-cloaked first, waving Sarah inside while Cade stayed cloaked and hidden. I discreetly motioned for him to check in-and-around the servers, checking for hidden threats. When the saboteurs showed their faces, I wanted said faces to meet Meera again.

Sarah wordlessly nodded to me and moved cautiously into the room, doing her best to mimic a combat stance and keeping her Avenger up and ready to fire. I stayed close, my amp sizzling slightly at the base of my skull, ready to throw up a Barrier at the slightest sound of gunfire.

Sarah made her way down one of the four walkways towards the holo-terminal on the central platform while Cade and I began patrolling the perimeter of the room. I watched her produce a data drive from a lanyard around her neck and insert it into a port on the terminal. She entered a long string of codes, causing a panel on the terminal to open and a robotic scanner to appear.

It flashed red as it read her neural implants before pulsing a brilliant green. Immediately the holo-terminal began spinning up and emitting a low hum.

"The data is uploading now, it should be done in a couple of minutes," Sarah reported.

"Great, sit tight then," I answered. Sarah nodded and picked up her M-8 Avenger, scanning the room and protecting the holo-terminal.

I suddenly felt a slight electric jolt on my wrist. I looked down to see that my omni-tool had been shut down. I cursed softly and attempted to reboot it, but it was dead.

"Hey, is your omni-tool working?" Sarah called out.

 _Shit._

I keyed my comm. set. "Cade—," I whispered, "—I think we've got host-"

Before I could finish my sentence, half a dozen rounds impacted into my chest, bringing my kinetic barriers dangerously close to zero. I immediately dropped and rolled out of the way. The red-hot barrel of a silenced M-8 Avenger and the saboteur holding it phased into view as he dropped his tactical cloak.

Instead of waiting for my shields to recharge, I triggered my own tactical cloak and faded from view. The saboteur stepped out from behind the data center he had attacked from and began scanning around the room, rifle swinging back and forth.

I crept up silently behind him and with one hand around his jaw I jammed my Talon combat knife deep into his neck. A bright red geyser of blood erupted from the severed artery, coating my armored forearms. The saboteur gurgled and died in my arms. Unfortunately for him, kinetic shields were designed to deflect high-velocity projectiles, not titanium-carbon turian-designed combat knives.

"Cade! We've got fucking host—,"

I heard the sound of armor hitting metal behind me and instantly pivoted to face my rear. A second saboteur de-cloaked appeared from behind another Data center and unloaded her Avenger directly at me.

I lifted the dead saboteur I was still holding and shifted him between me and her, using him to absorb the onslaught. His kinetic shields whined as the Avenger fire shredded them while mine replenished themselves to full charge. I heard her rifle click empty and smiled.

My amp came alive and those familiar, biotic blue flames spun down my arms. I used my biotics and threw her dead buddy directly at her, knocking her down and disorienting her.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cade fighting another saboteur in hand-to-hand on the other side of the room. Two other saboteurs already lay dead around him, one of them with half his face blown off courtesy of an M-6 Carnifex armor-piercing round while the other had his throat cut.

I ripped my Predator out of my holster and squeezed off four shots, the first three shorting out the saboteur's kinetic shields and the fourth blowing out his brains in a fine, red mist that Cade would need to scrub out of his gear the next time we docked. He nodded to me and spun around just in time to block the upward-swing of a knife in the hands of another attacking saboteur with his armored forearms.

The female saboteur had thrown her dead compatriot off of her and was frantically trying to scramble to her feet. I turned back to face her and lazily waved my arm in a lifting gesture. Blue flames erupted from my hand and around her body and she was yanked into the air by my biotic Pull.

She dangled helplessly for a moment, arms flailing desperately, quiet, muffled screams coming from her helmet. Coldly, I made a gripping gesture with my hand and used my biotics to crush her neck and collapse her windpipe.

The blue flames rescinded and her body dropped limply to the floor. The dying scream of another saboteur echoed loudly in the Data Archives. I turned my head to see Cade clean his Talon combat knife on the dead saboteur's armor and return it to his shoulder sheath.

"Sarah, is everything okay?" I called out. Sarah stood up from where she had crouched in-front of the holo-terminal, having spent the fight watching silently and afraid of shooting either Cade or I as we engaged the saboteurs in close quarters.

"Fine," she reported "the data is about 50 percent downloaded, we just need a few more minutes."

I nodded, satisfied that the mission objectives remained intact. I rubbed my jaw with a bloody hand and eyed the dead saboteurs with distaste. Sloppy, they had decided to split their forces instead of concentrating all their firepower on one of us. Worse, the one who had first fired at me had clearly done so without alerting his comrades to his plans. Had there been another rifle, I might have very well been killed.

"Cade, are you okay?" I asked my friend.

He aimed a kick at the last saboteur he had killed. "Just dandy…" he reported.

Out of instinct, something compelled me to kneel down and take a closer look at the female saboteur whose neck I had snapped.

Just as I took a knee I felt a sharp burst of air pass directly over my head right where my neck had been mere seconds before, followed by a resounding metallic clang. I drew my eyes up just in time to see the torso of a female saboteur appear less than an arm's length away from me.

Her hands were wrapped around a long, pale monomolecular blade similar to ones commonly favored by Nightbringer assassins and reminiscent of the katanas wielded by ancient samurais and 21st century teenagers. My mind went back to the severed appendages that we had found after we had left the elevator.

I immediately launched a flurry of punches into her abdomen before finishing with an uppercut that sent her crashing into the metal railing that ringed the catwalk. She shook her head and vanished from view, activating her tactical cloak and rolling away just as I launched a biotically-powered stomp right where she had just been moments before, badly denting the railing.

She de-cloaked a few feet away and leapt back towards me, sword flashing and surging forward like a striking serpent. I slipped her first few stabs and deflected away a few others with my armguards, trying to back away so that I could bring my biotics into play. This saboteur was apparently much more skilled and intelligent than the rest that I had encountered; she kept close and used her sword to keep me constantly on the defensive.

I threw a forearm into her chest, causing her to stumble back a few steps. My eyes darted over to Cade. I could see that he was busy fighting with what appeared to be a turian saboteur—the first that we had seen. Cade was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a turian in sleek black and gold armor and _losing_.

Cade had his Talon out in one hand, making quick, snaking swipes at his opponent's helmeted head. I watched as the turian saboteur artfully slip under Cades' slashes, grab him by the armored cowl and driving his knee powerfully into his gut twice, knocking the wind out of Cade and sending him to the ground in a coughing fit.

I turned my eyes back onto the saboteur in front of me and decided to change tactics. The next time her sword lashed out, I stepped closer, bringing myself less than a foot away from her.

She made to reverse her sword-swing but I stopped her armored arms in their tracks with one outstretched hand. I threw my bodyweight into a vicious elbow strike that rammed straight into the side of her helmet, eliciting a pained grunt from the female saboteur.

With one arm still holding her arms at bay I brought my superior size and strength into play, driving my armored knee into her gut and winding her. Seeing that she was stunned, I whipped my Predator out and placed the barrel at the base of her chin but before I could pull the trigger she violently twisted away and turned on her tactical cloak, fading to invisibility.

I cursed and glanced over to where Cade had been fighting. Cade stumbled to his feet, head swinging back and forth around the room, but the turian saboteur was nowhere to be found.

A sound drew my attention, the sound of slow, almost mocking, clapping.

I spun around and saw four armored figures shimmer into existence around Sarah on the central platform. One of them was the black and gold-armored turian Cade had been fighting, his arms crossed leisurely across his chest and leaning casually on the holo-terminal. He had removed his helmet, revealing a face that was relatively smooth and young, with light-blue, simple clan markings on pale, white scales.

Another was the female saboteur that had tried her best to gut me. She had one arm wrapped around Sarah while the other pressed her sword against Sarah's quivering neck. The third was what looked to be a salarian in black armor with grey trim and what looked like dozens of different grenades clipped to his belt. He had been the one who had been clapping. His helmet was also off, revealing scarred, wrinkled grey flesh and a wide grin on his face.

The fourth and final saboteur was a tall, wiry man clad in black armor with a single red stripe running down his left arm and a crisp, white N7 emblazoned on his chest. The surface of his black armor was scarred and pitted, badges of honor that marked him as a battle-hardened veteran of lethal skill. He stepped forward and wrapped his hands around the base of his helmet, unsealing it with a slight hiss and pulling it off to reveal his face.

He was old, perhaps in his early-to-mid 50's. His features were sharp, his skin pale but weathered, contrasting deeply with his salt-and-pepper beard and thick hair. Even in the dim lighting of the room I could make out a pair of piercing, electric-blue eyes. They stared directly into mine, and even amidst the chaos of the situation I couldn't help but notice that they were a bit sad.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1942 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Data Archives_

 _2 hours, 42 minutes after Outbreak_

"You fight well," the man observed.

I raised my Predator and trained it squarely on his head. On the other side of the catwalk Cade unclipped Meera off his back and trained it at the turian saboteur. The turian saboteur sniffed dismissively, arms still casually crossed against his chest and his back leaning against the terminal, but otherwise kept his attention firmly on me.

"Who are you, what do you want?" I asked them quietly. Blue biotic flames began crawling up and down my arms. This prompted the female saboteur holding Sarah hostage to press her sword more firmly into her neck, drawing a thin red line of blood. Sarah's eyes met mine and I could see her fear reflected in them, but also more than a hint of defiance and a stern resolve.

At the unspoken threat, I quickly withdrew my biotics but nonetheless kept my Predator squarely trained on the rogue N7.

"It is not very polite to point a gun at your saviors, human," cackled the salarian. "I would have thought that your mother would have taught you better manners."

A cloud of rage darkened my face and I immediately swapped targets to the salarian. The rogue N7's piercing-blue eyes alighted with fury and directed their gaze from me onto to his fellow saboteur.

"Stay quiet," he harshly commanded. The salarian did not deign to speak further, although his condescending smirk never left his face. He grinned and clasped both hands behind his back. The rogue N7 turned back to me and began to speak.

His voice was rough but clear. "We have no intention of harming you, we are only here for the data." he calmly assured me.

My grip tightened around the handle of my Predator. "You're not leaving here with that data."

A pained look crossed the face of the rogue N7. "You have no idea what is going on, what we are trying to accomplish. We do not want to hurt you or your friends. Just put down the gun and let us go."

I chuckled quietly at that. "That is not going to happen."

"Let's just kill them and be done with it, we're wasting time," argued the salarian. The rogue N7 ignored him, instead holding up both hands in a placating gesture.

"This ship is not safe," he calmly stated. "There is no further need for anyone else to die. There are events going on that you do not understand, a plan decades in the making—"

"There are monsters running around this fucking ship, gutting and killing everyone," I interrupted him. "You sabotaged the ship and I'm betting you sabotaged the project too. By the authority of the Citadel Council I order you to lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully, this is your one and only warning."

The salarian howled with laughter and even the silent turian cracked a grin, "One and only warning!" he mocked, "the young pup has spirit!" he shrieked with glee.

The female saboteur hooked one hand underneath her helmet and removed it, revealing a shock of red hair and familiar dark grey eyes. "Spirit and good looks," she pursed her lips, "You should join us, I could make it worth your while."

My mind went back to the Secondary Engine Room where I had that wounded saboteur on his knees. I finally recalled where I had seen him. He had been one of the lab technicians that had nodded to the doctor that had escorted me to the Activation Chamber.

Dr. Olivia Flanagan flashed a brilliantly white smile and pressed the edge of her blade deeper into Sarah's neck. Sarah's eyes flitted over to her captor and grew alight with anger.

"You traitorous bitch, I'll fucking kill you—," Sarah vehemently spat, but her threats went unheeded as Olivia merely laughed and pressed her sword even deeper into her neck, eliciting a grunt of pain from Sarah.

"You did this, you sabotaged the project, you caused this, you killed Paul!" Sarah raged, but Olivia didn't spare her a glance, instead locking her eyes onto mine and licking her lips.

"Come with us, darling. Don't you want to know why these people died? What they died for?" She purred.

The rogue N7 stepped forward again, arms still held out in a placating gesture. The older man displayed all the signs of being the ringleader for their little cell, the red stripe and N7 insignia on his armor marking him as a combatant of significant lethality. But unlike the salarian, Dr. Flanagan, or even the quiet turian, he alone had yet to display any sign of hostile intent.

The rogue N7 kept his hands in plain view, well away from any of his weapons. "She's right, come with us," he further pleaded. "Give us a chance to explain what happened, a chance to explain what we came here for. I promise you that your friends will be allowed to leave peacefully. It'll all make sense, I promise. Just let us have the data and come with us."

"Don't listen to him," chimed Cade. He had slowly moved around the walkway to stand beside me, Meera still trained on the saboteurs. "Remember the mission."

"Why don't you just tell me what you want and why you're here, because I am not fucking going with you," I spat angrily. "Tell me why you sabotaged the project, why you're here, why you killed all these people!"

"Why?!" stormed the salarian, "WHY?! Because Shepard lied! Because Shepard doomed us! Because Shepard robbed us of what should have been rightfully ours! You will not halt our transcendence, if you will not join us then you can die!" he babbled manically, frothing at the mouth. The salarian pulled out a Scorpion heavy pistol with one hand and trained it directly at me while the other ignited an omni-blade. The barrel of the Scorpion began to glow blue.

"NO!" shouted the rogue N7. Quick as a snake, the N7 thrust an arm out to brush the barrel of the Scorpion towards the ceiling. Four bright, glowing blue orbs erupted from the barrel, impacting on the ceiling and adhering to it for a few seconds before erupting in a bright flash and blowing a hole in the ceiling.

"You moron!" the rogue N7 roared, losing his composure for the first time since the encounter started. With a gloved hand he backhanded the salarian who tumbled to the ground.

Low moans began echoing from the hole in the ceiling. The twisted, gruesome visage of a Corpser appeared in it, maw stretched impossibly wide in what appeared to be a rictus grin. It pulled itself through the ceiling, falling in a mass of twisted flesh and machinery onto the catwalk encircling the central platform. It shambled to its feet and began making its way towards us. Two more followed it, and then another, all of them moaning hungrily.

A slight chime emitted from the holo-terminal. The turian saboteur shifted away from where he had leaned against it and pulled out an M-97 Viper Sniper Rifle from his back armor plate. "Locke, the data is done downloading," he quietly reported.

The rogue N7—Locke—nodded and quickly pulled the data drive from the holo-terminal and placed it in an armored compartment on his belt. Nodding to the turian, he pulled out an N7 Valkyrie Battle Rifle and powered it on.

"We've got the data, prepare to leave," he ordered his subordinates. The turian nodded while the salarian scowled, shooting daggers out of his eyes at Cade and I but otherwise keeping silent. Olivia gritted her teeth and shot him an angry look.

"What about them? We can't just let them live," she argued.

"We can and we will," he shot back.

"They know too much, they know what we've done. If they survive they could run to Council and tell them—"

"We have our mission parameters, Flanagan!" Locke viciously snarled. "Our orders were to activate the Reaper Core and retrieve the data. They did not include the direct termination of Project personnel — something that you seem to have forgotten back at the fucking elevators—or the Spectres overseeing the Project. Let the doctor go and be prepared to move."

"But—,"she began.

"Now!" Locke roared.

With a grunt of disgust, Olivia shoved Sarah to the ground. Sarah immediately scrambled towards her M-8 Avenger, grabbing it and swinging around to train it on the saboteurs. Olivia suddenly looked at the hole in the ceiling and started laughing hysterically.

"Looks like I didn't kill your husband after all," she said with a smirk.

Sarah, Cade and I all looked up at the ceiling. We watched as the massive, metal-plated form of a Changer squeezed his way through the hole, landing with a loud, metallic thud amidst its smaller Corpser brethren, crushing one that had not moved fast enough out of its way. The other Corpsers in the room stopped to hiss at it for a moment before resuming their march towards us.

The Changer unfurled itself to its full height, towering over the other Corpsers. Bits of grey hair still clung to what was left of its skull, half his jaw had been torn away and huge metal spikes coated with dried blood and bits of skin. Menacing metal orbs sat in gaunt sockets and shone with crimson fury, the metal talons on his massive left arm brushed the ground, flexing and curling and carving divots into the catwalk as he began stumbling down one of the pathways towards the central platform towards Sarah.

Despite the extensive damage to the Changers' face, the missing lower jaw and the rough, ugly cybernetics snaking through his body, none of us had any problem recognizing the former neural engineer that he had once been.

Trembling and sobbing, Sarah raised her M-8 Avenger and trained it shakily on what had once been her husband.

Cade immediately began firing on the Corpsers, blowing off limbs with his beloved Black Widow. I watched as the salarian tapped a command on his omni-tool, opening a door on the other side of the room that the saboteurs began moving towards. Sarah stood rooted to the ground, her arms trembling, neither firing her weapon nor attempting to run as what used to be her husband slowly walked towards her.

Without thinking, I began sprinting after the saboteurs, firing my Predator at them as they ran through the door. Locke was the first one through, then the turian and the salarian, with Olivia at the rear. I ran, legs pumping as I fast as I could as I tried desperately to catch up to them.

Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough. I watched helplessly as Olivia passed through the threshold and the doors began closing. Winking, she turned around and blew me a kiss as the doors slid shut. I crashed into the closed doors and screamed in utter frustration, pounding one armored fist on the door.

I turned back around, eyes wide with fear as what had been Paul Messner shambled within a few feet of Sarah. Cade was yelling at her to run while he kept the Corpsers at bay. He shot two more before a third lunged at him. He ducked under its metal claws, drew his Talon and drove it up into the Corpsers' skull. I drew and aimed my Predator at the Changer but Sarah held out a hand to stop me.

"Please," she sobbed. "Paul, it's me, its Sarah."

She lowered her rifle and took a shaky step towards the hulking abomination. The Changer stopped in its tracks and leered down at her with its cold, red metallic eyes. On the other side of the room Cade's Black Widow barked loudly, drilling a hole through the head of the last Corpser and felling it. The room grew quiet as the last of the moaning faded away, nothing but the fading echo of that last gunshot, Sarah's trembling breathing, and the metallic rasp of the Changer shifting in place.

"Sarah, get out of the way!" I shouted. Every instinct screamed at me to shoot it but Sarah still had one hand raised towards me, wordlessly begging me not to take her husband from her.

Instead of listening, Sarah took a step forwards and held out one shaky hand towards what had once been her husband. "Baby, I know you're still in there" she desperately pleaded. "Fight it, please. Come back to me. We can fix whatever happened to you, just please come back to me. Come back to me and John."

For a moment the red light in its eyes flickered briefly, as if there was an internal struggle occurring in the very soul of Paul Messner as he desperately fought against the invader within his mind, against what the invader was urging him to do, urging him to harm the woman he loved. The Changer shrank briefly and began edging away, pulling its arms close to its torso.

Encouraged, Sarah took a step closer, this time with a smile etched on her face, shining through the tears that streamed down her cheeks like raindrops. Cade and I watched silently as the behemoth slumped towards her, bringing what was left of his ravaged face within arm's reach of Sarah. She held out her hand again and this time it didn't tremble.

"Come home with me," she whispered.

Paul shuddered and went still. A moment later, before either Cade or I could react, he lashed out with his massive arm and sent his long, metal talons scything across Sarah's chest.

A bright spray of blood jetted from the mortally wounded scientist, and Sarah slumped to the ground without a sound. My vision darkened and I heard a loud, piercing cry of rage coming from my own lips.

I sprinted towards the Changer, my Amp igniting to life and bathing me in angry, snatching blue fire. I heard three loud gunshots, each of them impacting the arm of the Changer and causing it to stumble forwards. They carved great chunks of flesh and metal from its arm, with the last one blowing it off in a shower of metal sparks and gore.

I threw my left hand forward and the largest, blackest Singularity I had ever thrown blossomed into existence, surging towards the Changer and ripping the massive abomination off its feet and into the air. It finally roared in pain as the purple, fiery flames of the Singularity licked up and down its torso began eating at what remained of its flesh.

Its cabled arm lashed out, trying to grab hold of me and to infect me but I dodged underneath them. I brought my hands together, as if I was holding a ball between my fingers.

With a furious yell, I ripped my hands apart. The Singularity flashed and exploded, ripping the Changer in half. With a pained groan, both halves of the Changer collapsed on either side of the holo-terminal.

Smoke began rising from torn metal and flesh as I calmly strode towards the half that had Paul's head attached to it. I raised my Predator and fired half a dozen rounds into his face, shredding it and obliterating it into a pulpy mass. I watched impassively as the light dimmed from its eyes and what had been doctor Paul Messner quietly died at my feet.

I looked back to where Sarah had fallen, her dirty, shredded labcoat covered in blood. I quietly walked over to where Cade knelt beside her, one hand holding hers while the other was pressed against her chest in a hopeless attempt to stem the flow of blood, an empty canister of medi-gel lie spent beside him.

Cade glanced up at me with heavy sorrow in his gaze and slowly shook his head as he removed his bloody glove and indicated to her wounds. I walked over to where she lay and I knelt down, gently taking her other hand in my trembling ones.

She was whimpering softly, her eyes glimmering with tears. I looked down, away from her eyes and at the bloody ruin of her chest and throat. Her husbands' talons had torn through her neck and her chest, causing damage that I knew no amount of medi-gel was going to fix. I drew my gaze back to her wide, staring blue eyes.

I felt a tear slide down my face as her wheezing became more and more labored, her ruined throat whistling as oxygen spilled from the terrible, jagged wound. Her whimpering had ceased and her breathing became shallower and shallower as oxygen leaked out of the gaping tear with each breath she took. Each beat of her heart caused more and more of her life blood to spill out on the cold ground around her. Shaking, she drew her hand out of Cade's and reached into the pocket of her labcoat.

She removed the photo of her, Paul and her son John from that day on the beach. Her trembling hand left bloody stains on the back of her photo. With the last of her strength she brought the photo to her lips and kissed it. She held it out to me then, her eyes meeting mine and making one last silent plea that her ruined throat prevented her from asking.

I gently took it and nodded, placing it reverently and safely into an armored compartment on my belt. She smiled as her eyes followed my actions. Satisfied that the photo was safely stored, I held onto her hand with both my hands.

"I'll take care and watch over him, I promise you," I whispered brokenly. My soul ached for the young boy who would soon find out that he had lost both his mother and father. In my heart I swore to every god that might have been listening that this was one promise that I would die to keep.

Sarah nodded and smiled at me one last time, satisfied. Her slowly eyes drifted towards the ceiling and I watched in quiet anguish as the light in them dimmed and slowly flickered out. Sarah had joined her husband.

I knelt wordlessly in silence, both hands still clasped around her slowly cooling hand. My head was bowed and my gaze unflinching as I stared at her body.

It was Cade who moved first. First he gently closed her eyes with his blood-stained hands, next he then gently took her hand from my grasp, taking it and her other hand and folded them reverently on her chest, hiding her terrible wounds. After he finished, he looked up at me, concern etched heavily in his gaze.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I looked back at her body, trying to ignore the massive rends in her flesh and the copious amounts of blood staining her coat and pooling on the ground around her. Instead I tried to see her as she had been.

In my minds' eye I could see her standing tall, scarred by the sudden loss of her husband but refusing to let it consume her, determined to retrieve the data so that we could try and save countless others. That Sarah had known fear, but had not let that fear prevent her from doing what had to be done. That Sarah had seen monsters take away her friends and her husband but had still followed me unhesitatingly into the jaws of death itself because she knew that if she didn't, others would die.

That Sarah was not the Sarah who lay broken in front of me, cold and small. It couldn't be. Or maybe it was her, maybe it should be her. Maybe I was dishonoring her by remembering her how I wanted to remember her instead of remembering everything that she had been.

Or maybe it didn't matter what courage she had shown or what fear she had overcome or how I chose to remember her because in the end she was still dead, torn violently from this life by the one she had loved. I don't know, I don't think I will ever know.

I drove an armored fist into the ground, denting it. I'd had a choice, just like I'd had a choice back when I was escaping the lab, like I'd had a choice back when I let those monsters tear apart that poor, frightened maintenance technician.

I drove my fist into the ground again and again, desperately trying to feel something, anything, but the microweave fibers in my armored gloves were designed to withstand and cushion my knuckles from impacts far harder than my punches could produce, robbing me of self-inflicted pain, robbing me of my catharsis.

Cade leapt over and grabbed my arm with both of his just as I was drawing my arm back for another try.

"Spirits, Stop! Stop it!" he hissed. "It wasn't your fault!"

He ripped me to my feet, grabbed my upper arms and shook me sternly.

"It wasn't your fault," he said softly.

I refused to look into his eyes, refused to acknowledge that look of understanding and pain that he was currently giving me. Instead I kept my gaze squarely on Sarah's broken body, my eyes trained on the growing pool of blood around her that seemed to ring her like a bloody halo. Cade growled and shook me harder, the harmonics in his flanging voice deepening as he grew more and more angry.

"We still have a mission," he spat at me. "I know she's gone but we still have a job to do. We can't let these things get off the ship, we can't let these things spread. We might have lost the data, but we can still catch them, we can still get the data back and make them pay."

He turned to look at Sarah's unmoving form. "Don't let her die for nothing," he snarled. "We're Spectres, our mission will always be the galaxy, never just one person."

He relaxed his grip on my arms and the angry harmonics in his voice softened. "I can't do this without you. I need you to stay with me," he pleaded.

His plea lifted the haze from my very soul and snapped me back into the real world. The Sarah I remembered—brave and courageous— was gone and I was suddenly back in the Data Archives, standing over the body of our VIP, my Predator in need of a new heat-sink and our current objective in the hands of a group of skilled, mysterious saboteurs.

"We need to rendezvous with Percival at the Bridge," I stated. I twisted out of Cade's grasp and rubbed my jaw with an armored hand. Cade nodded, satisfied that I had my shit buttoned down , and inserted a new heatsink into his Black Widow. I did the same for my Predator before holstering it and unhooking my Snakebite from my armor, my mind racing as I tried to formulate a new course, a new plan of action

"The saboteurs are going to try and leave the ship," I reasoned. "They are probably headed right now towards one of the many hangar bays for exfiltration," I explained as I turned and began walking towards a door marked "Crew Quarters".

"As much as it pains me to say," I continued, "I don't think pursuit and retrieval of the data is a viable course of action. We're outnumbered two-to-one, two of the combatants possessing an unknown skill level with the third outclassing you and the fourth also of significant lethality. Eliminating the saboteurs and retrieving the data might be outside of the scope of our capabilities."

Cade nodded and followed behind me. "You're right. We're better off scuttling the ship, we should abandon data retrieval and shift our focus to asset denial," he conceded.

"We definitely need to first link up with Percival the rest of the survivors on the Bridge. Should the opportunity to retrieve that data from the saboteurs present itself, we're going to need assistance if we want to eliminate them and take the data back," I explained further.

l shook my head and smiled. "Can't believe that turian kicked your ass, he looked like he was 15" I smirked. Cade grunted in protest but otherwise declined to defend himself, refusing to comment on the ass-kicking he had received from the younger turian. The door to the crew quarters slid open and I walked out without a second thought.

Cade paused at the door, shooting one last glance to where Sarah's body rested on the cold polysteel of the central platform. His mandibles twitched as his eyes flitted over her body one last time. He pulled a homing grenade from his belt, activated the trigger and lobbed it gently towards the platform where she lay. It hit the deck beside her and rolled softly to rest beside her hand before erupting in a fiery blaze that set the platform on fire.

Satisfied, Cade turned on his heel and followed me out the door.


	6. Chapter 6 - Even in the Darkest Times

**Chapter 6 – Even in the Darkest Times**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 1959 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 24D_

 _2 hours, 59 minutes after Outbreak_

The scent of Sarah burning threatened to tear down the walls that I had hastily constructed within my mind. Tears welled up beneath my eyes, unbidden, but I violently hammered them back down.

In truth, I was glad and relieved at Cade's actions. In my desire to immediately distance myself from her loss by re-immersing myself in the mission I had forgotten to give her a proper send-off, had forgotten to ensure that those monsters wouldn't desecrate her body. Instead of turning back I had instead chosen to keep on walking, scared to look back at where she lay small and still, scared that if I looked at her again I would go down a path that I wouldn't surface from.

I rubbed my jaw with my gloved hand, making a futile attempt to ease the pressure trapped there. I hadn't noticed how hard I'd been clenching my teeth. I massaged my jaw a few more times before opening my mouth experimentally.

The pressure eased up and I somehow managed to pull enough of myself together to refocus on the mission at hand, banishing the last thoughts of Sarah deep down inside and resuming my scan for possible ambush points, attack vectors, and enemy hostiles. I moved my hand from my jaw to the barrel of my Snakebite and resumed my march down the dimly lit corridor.

Cade sped up so that he was walking directly beside me. His Vindicator was held loosely in his hands but his eyes darted systematically throughout the corridor, watching carefully for any signs of ambush. He shot me a glance that I didn't need to see to know was laced with concern.

It was understandable that he felt apprehensive at my current emotional disposition and the effect that it would have on my combat readiness but at the moment I really didn't feel like trying to convince him that I was perfectly fine.

There was an elevator at the end of the hallway. The fastest and most direct way to the Bridge would be to take the elevator to Deck 19 or 20, make our way through the Crew Quarters and take an elevator back down to Deck 7 where we would exit almost directly at the Bridge.

I double-checked my schematics again. We were about halfway within the SSV Hippocrates. The Crew Quarters stretched for nearly 400 meters near the spine of the ship. I could see sleeping chambers, communal bathrooms, several messes and even two recreational gymnasiums. Despite the sheer number of facilities on that Deck, all of them were connected and would form what could be roughly considered to be a direct path to the Bridge.

We travelled in silence towards the elevator. Once we were a few feet from the lift buttons, Cade grabbed my shoulder to halt me. I looked at him quizzically, but when I realized why he had stopped me I rolled my eyes. I turned around to cover our rear while Cade walked up and tapped the elevator button. The panel lit up, displaying a bright, yellow six. Cade grinned at me, prompting me to flip him off.

Fucking Korlus.

After a few seconds there was a slight ding and the elevator doors open. Cade stood to the side and extended his arm invitingly into the elevator, his smug grin still plastered on his face. I flipped him off one more time before stepping inside. He followed behind me and pressed floor 19. With a slight hum, the doors closed and I felt the gentle tug of gravity as the elevator began its ascent.

Cade shifted in place as the elevator crawled upwards. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I sensed what he was about to say.

"I'm sorry about Sarah," he began.

I didn't reply, merely grunted and kept my eyes fixed on the doors ahead of me. I willed the elevator to move faster.

"She was very brave," Cade continued.

Someone had scratched the initials DL and RC into the bottom of the door and then a heart around it. It was a crappy job, like it had been done by someone with cerebral palsy. My brow wrinkled in disgust and I shook my head at the shoddy worksmanship.

"I can't imagine how you feel right now, but I need to know that your head is in the game. The situation is still very, very bad, the saboteurs are much more dangerous than we had anticipated and I need to know that you've got my back—," he spoke cautiously.

Thankfully when we had restarted the back-up generator and therefore the elevators, it had not restarted the shitty muzak music along with it. I had heard it in the first elevator I had taken down to Containment Airlock 1 and it had been annoying enough for me to put a fist through the speakers. My mind wandered back to the two technicians who had entered the elevator after I had left. I smiled a little when I imagined the looks of bewilderment that must have been on their faces when they had entered the elevator and found a hole punched through the sound system.

"—Hey, are you even listening to me?" Cade asked. He grabbed my arm and spun me to face him. His blue eyes were indeed filled with concern and pity, just as I had feared. His mandibles twitched in irritation and a note of anger had seeped into his flanging harmonics.

"Yeah, I told you before I'm perfectly fine," I assured him. I brushed his hand away and tried to resume my intense staring contest with the elevator doors but he grabbed me again.

"No, you're not fine," he said accusingly. "Every time something like this happens, it's like you try and become someone else, someone who pretends like they don't care. Well let me tell you, you're not fooling anyone."

I didn't respond. A part of me knew it was true, and that same part of me couldn't bring itself to tell him that maybe that's how I coped, that maybe it was the only way I could cope.

"You can pretend that you're all tough and bottle it up deep down. Percival and I usually don't say anything because usually we're both there to watch you, to make sure you don't anything too stupid or suicidal," he continued. The anger in his tone increased an octave, the flanging becoming more and more evident as he went into full-on lecture mode.

"But this time Percival isn't here, we're fighting monsters beyond anyone's wildest nightmares and were up against a shadow organization embedded in the very Systems Alliance itself, comprised of deadly, skilled operatives and running spirits-knows how deep," he said sternly, a note of anxiety now creeping into his voice.

Cade sighed and ran a gloved hand through his fringe. "I need to know that you won't do anything stupid. I've seen how you can get sometimes, like you did back on Demeter when that family died in that explosion, or on Lusia after that asari reporter was shot. You take risks, you throw yourself into the goddamn fire like it was all your fault. Don't pretend that you don't."

Cade loaded a new heatsink into his Vindicator and turned his gaze towards the elevator doors.

"You and Percival are the only ones I trust aboard this ship and Percival isn't here. I need your help. You don't need to atone for anything. Spectres aren't supposed to be heroes…I would know," he finished silently.

I closed my eyes and sighed. "Cade…" I began. He looked up towards me.

"I've got your back, man," I assured him.

"I know," Cade nodded. "Just promise me that after this if you need help you'll ask."

"I promise."

My mind drifted back to the rogue N7, Locke, the quiet turian saboteur, the insane salarian and that psychotic, traitorous bitch with her perfect teeth. I couldn't think of a better therapy than putting a bullet between their eyes.

The panel read deck 19 and the doors began to slide open. Immediately a set of long, wicked, metallic claws attached to a desiccated, synthetic-organic arm scythed towards Cade. The snarling, slavering jaws of a salarian Corpser snapped hungrily at us as it tried to force its way through the partially-opened doors.

I shoved Cade out of the way, causing the claws to dig deep gouges into the floor of the elevator where he had been standing moments before. My left hand went behind my back and as quick as lightning ripped my Talon from its sheath and drove it deep under the chin of the Corpser with a powerful upward thrust. The blade slipped between the metal plates and synthetic cabling ringing its neck and into its mouth and head.

I ripped my knife back out. Immediately its red eyes dimmed and it collapsed to the floor in a sick jumble. I waited for the Crawlers to come pouring out but I shrugged lightly in surprise when none of them did. Satisfied, I wiped my Talon on my forearms before returning it to the sheath affixed to my lower back. I stepped over the Corpser, standing off to the side between the open elevator doors and gestured for Cade to exit first.

"After you," I told him.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2009 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 19, Crew Quarters – Entrance D_

 _3 hours, 9 minutes after Outbreak_

I sighed as we stepped out of the elevator and into a complete mess. This entrance to the crew quarters had doubled as a lounging area for the ship's crew. Broken glass lay everywhere, almost every chair was overturned, likely knocked over as the inhabitants of the room tried desperately to escape. A few had large tears in them and disturbingly large pools of blood staining the cushions. A television installed into the wall flickered quietly with static, bathing the room in a dull white light.

A table lay overturned, scraps of food and broken plates lying strewn around it. The remains of four lab technicians were scattered around the table, their bodies so mutilated and destroyed that even they couldn't be repurposed into Corpsers.

Beyond them lying at the entrance to the dormitories a turian security guard lay sprawled beside the doors, an M-8 Avenger clutches in his talons, surrounded in spent heatsinks and intestines spilling from a giant tear in his stomach. Cade shook his head sadly at the sight of him and padded over to pick up a few fallen data pads, examining their contents.

"Just as they were having dinner," I commented.

Cade shot a furtive glance at the carnage around us, "the technicians or the Corpsers?"

We moved into one of the main dormitories and found an even bigger mess. A couple of the night-shift crew members must have been catching up on sleep when the outbreak started because nearly a third of the beds had gaping tears and bloody sheets on top of the mattresses. Disturbingly, none of them contained any bodies, indicating that there was a good chance that we'd be encountering those monsters during our journey to the Bridge.

A holo-still on the nightstand beside one of the bloody beds drew my attention. I walked over and picked it up, squinting in the dim gloom at the figures in it. A smiling salarian held a giggling asari infant in his arms, his eyes betraying how tired but happy he was. I shook my head and set it back down on the nightstand. Whoever those saboteurs were and whatever they wanted, they had orphaned too many children with their actions. They'd have to pay for that. They'd have to pay painfully.

As we moved further and further down into the Crew Quarters, I began to hear a voice. The voice spoke unintelligibly at first, but as we moved deeper I began to pick up recognizable words, recognizable spanish words to be precise. They sounded angry, almost like the person was yelling at something. I turned to Cade who I saw had his head tilted upwards, his acute hearing had probably picked it up before mine had.

"Do you hear that?" I asked him.

Suddenly, what was unmistakably a weapon discharge sounded from further within the Crew Quarters, and then another, and another. Although at this distance I couldn't exactly make out whether it came from a pistol, sniper rifle, or shotgun, it didn't sound like it came from any weapon that I was familiar with.

"Survivors," Cade said urgently.

Immediately we both started into a run, heading towards the sound of the gunshots.

We sped through the sleeping area, hopping over fallen furniture and darting around overturned tables. The cursing and the gunshots became louder and louder the further we ran, the voice now distinctively female and most assuredly, definitely angry.

We exited the dormitory and entered a long hallway. We began to hear the telltale moaning and snarling that Corpsers made and knew that we were close. The gunshots stopped and the voice shifted from anger to fear. A sign appeared on the wall ahead, indicating that the next room on our left was a communal shower area. As we moved closer I began to also hear the sound of running water and slow, steady splashing.

We sprinted down the hall and dashed into the shower room. It was dark and dimly lit, a few badly mangled turian bodies lay strewn around the perimeter, naked, coloring the water in the room a light blue.

Also in the room were the near-destroyed bodies of almost half a dozen Corpsers. Though I couldn't see much in the light, I could see that most of them had their torso's oddly melted, and at least two of them were very nearly burnt to a crisp. Heat emanated from the dead Corpsers, steaming up the water coming from a number of active showerheads and filling the room with a light, wet mist.

We ran further in and stumbled upon six snarling Corpsers, all converging on one location with their backs turned to us. I unsheathed one of the Talons from my back and immediately sprinted towards the nearest Corpser, using the back of the ex-salarian's backward-hinged knee as a steeping stool to propel myself up as I drove the Talon down into the spine of the Corpser, killing it instantly.

Cade used his armor's jet boosters to throw himself forwards, crashing bodily into the back of another Corpser and knocking it flat on its face. Cade took out his knife from his shoulder sheath and also drove it into the neck of his target, ceasing its snarling.

My eyes widened in fear as a hot ball of plasma came shooting out of the mist. Luckily, Cade was no slouch. He rolled to his left, the plasma bolt missing him by centimeters and only succeeding in leaving behind a sooty streak on his right pauldron. It impacted a wall a few meters behind us, slagging it and sending melted bits of tile and metal sizzling onto the wet shower-room floor..

Another plasma bolt collided with a Corpser further in front of us. It howled as the white-hot plasma ate through its torso and the Crawlers housed inside seemed to shriek as they melted. After about two seconds, its desiccated, synthetic torso was completely gone, its head landing with a wet flop onto the ground while its legs lay splayed out in a wet puddle, smoke hissing from it.

A third fiery projectile, one that I recognized to be an Incineration bolt fired from an omni-tool program, slammed into another Corpser and melted half its face off, causing it to crumple to its knees and dying in a wreath of steam.

" _Vete a la mierda!"_ an angry, female voice screeched loudly. As we moved closer, the mist from all the heat and the showers finally cleared to reveal the last two Corpsers advancing menacingly at the soaked, disheveled form of a female technician.

In her hands she cradled a large, almost insect-looking weapon that I recognized to be a rare Geth Plasma Shotgun which was currently in the process of overheating. Her back was pressed firmly against the wall, putting her as far from the Corpsers as possible as she waited desperately for her weapon to cool down.

The Corpsers snarled, legs bent and prepared to pounce. A familiar sizzle erupted from the base of my neck and suddenly blue fire licked down my arms. I flicked my hand upwards, pulling her two attackers into the air. They screeched angrily at having their hunt interrupted, their wildly swinging claws coming within inches of the face of the cowering female technician.

Before I could raise my rifle, my boy Cade came in clutch. Lightning fast, he blew both their heads open with Meera, showering the pour female technician in sparks and blood and bits of human grey matter. My biotic field dissipated and they dropped limply to the floor with a wet splash. Crawlers began squirming within their stomachs but I threw a tiny, blue Warp with a flick of my hand that tore them to pieces.

The female technician blinked once in shock before raising her now cooled-down plasma shotgun and sighting it on the nearest target, which fortunately for me was not me. I couldn't really fault her on what happened next, it was understandable given the situation. Adrenaline mixed with a healthy dose of shock due to a near-death experience usually caused stuff like this to happen in untrained personnel. I would have to have a stern talk with whoever gave her a friggin' Geth Plasma Shogun afterwards.

The scared technician fired her shotgun, letting loose a second fiery-blue bolt straight at Cade before he could even open his mouth, likely mistaking him for another Corpser. Like I said, understandable given the situation, and I'd be lying if I said I never wanted to do the same thing from time to time.

Luckily for all three parties, this was not the first time an angry female had opened fire on Operative Cade Kitiarian, and thanks to my friends quick reflexes it would not be the last.

He ducked quickly, the bolt flying over his head to slag the wall behind him. "By the Spirits, we're friendlies!" Cade shouted angrily. He strode forwards and ripped the plasma shotgun from her hands, grunting in surprise as the technicians' left fist went crashing into his right mandible and ducking under a furious swipe from her right.

The female technician nursed her bruised hand and winced, having skinned a few knuckles on my friend's scaly skin. She looked in askance at Cade and it was a few seconds before it finally registered to her that he was not one of those synthetic, rotted freaks that had just been trying to kill her. The pain seemed to jar her mind back into reality, clearing the battle-fog from her eyes and the shock at having narrowly avoided death.

" _Maldito Turiano,"_ she breathed in relief. As capricious as a summer storm, she instantly went from angry and scared to relieved and crying. The technician threw her arms around Cade and began sobbing into the turian's collar armor. Cade awkwardly placed the plasma shotgun on the ground beside them and gently patted her back as she cried. " _Estàs seguro, estàs seguro…,"_ he told her repeatedly in spanish.

The female technician sobbed a few more times into his collar armor before sniffling and wiping her eyes on her soaking-wet sleeve. After a few moments, she untangled herself from Cade and bent to pick up her shotgun. Cade gently kept both hands reassuringly on her upper arms as she calmed herself down.

I recognized her as the pretty female technician that Cade had accidentally bumped into on our way to the Bridge before the outbreak had started. Her eyes shimmered with tears and the mist from the showers had caused her highlighted streak of hair to lay plastered against her forehead, but I could still recognize her.

"Come on, it's not safe here," I urged. She nodded and raised one shaking hand to a door marked as a female locker room off to the side. Cade kept one arm around her in an attempt to keep her shivering form marginally warm as I walked over and kicked the door open.

I marched in with my Snakebite out and scanned it for hostiles. It was empty and not particularly large, a number of benches covered the center while electronically sealed lockers ringed the perimeter.

I waved them an all-clear and they made their way inside behind me. She padded over to a locker, leaving wet footsteps across the floor, and placed her shotgun down beside it. The technician dialed a code into the locker key pad, causing it to swing opened, and pulled out a towel, a fresh jumpsuit and what appeared to be some very light body armor.

"So," Cade began. "What were you doing in there?" he asked her.

"Trying to get to this," she gestured at the armor. She immediately began unzipping and stepping out of her soaked jumpsuit, leaving it in a sopping wet puddle on the floor. Cade coughed turned to cover our entryway with Meera while I turned to cover another door that led back to the dormitories. We were better than that.

"My friend Anna is, was, a security guard aboard this ship," she began as she toweled herself off and started pulling the jumpsuit on one leg at a time.

"She liked to keep a spare set of armor in her locker. I used to make fun of her for it. I used to laugh at her, kept telling her what polite attackers she must be expecting if they would wait until she was clean before shooting at her," she explained sadly in lightly accented English. It was common for civilians to launch into anecdotes after surviving a near-death situation, an effective self-soothing technique that kept the silence out.

We waited patiently, eyes on our respective entryways as we waited for the female technician to get dressed. Behind me I could hear clips being fastened and the familiar whine of a kinetic shield being powered on. "I was trying to reach it when those things caught up to me. It is a good thing you found me when you did, I thought I was a goner for sure."

"You can turn around now, thank you," she finished. Cade and I both turned and lowered our rifles. The female technician was now dressed in a navy-blue security guard jumpsuit with an SSV Hippocrates patch on the left shoulder and wearing the light-armored Elkoss Combine torso armor that was standard issue for the ship's security personnel. She also had the armored boots and forearm armor on, but had neglected to wear the microweave undersuit and the armor on her upper thighs and arms.

"You're the turian I bumped into a few hours ago," she nodded at Cade while she started toweling off her hair.

Cade cleared his throat. "Spectre Operative Cade Kitiarian, and this is my colleague Spectre Operative Cloud. We, alongside Spectre Operative Lancelot Percival, were sent to monitor the next phase of Project Prometheus," he introduced and explained.

"Spectre Operative Percival, the big, pretty one?" the technician asked. Cade nodded. "And Spectre operative Cloud, do you have a first name?" she asked.

"Everyone has a first name," I said dismissively, neglecting to answer.

She didn't press it. "Regardless, thank you both for saving my life. I would have ended up like one of those monsters had you two not shown up," she nodded gratefully at the both of us. She turned back to Cade and her brow furrowed in concern. "Do you know what is happening aboard the ship? Where these things came from and why they are killing everybody?" she asked quietly.

"No idea, although Cloud was there at ground zero when the outbreak began. We believe that the Reaper Core malfunctioned after it was activated, initiating the outbreak. Things went south from there," Cade told her.

" _Dios mìo,_ a Reaper Core?" she whispered.

"Yes," Cade nodded. "There was a cell of saboteurs embedded within the ship's crew. We believe that they sabotaged the project, although we currently do not know why. Several high-ranking scientists and technicians, including doctor Olivia Flanagan, are among the saboteurs, as well as other individuals who should be considered incredibly dangerous," he explained, his mind no doubt wandering back to the quiet, young turian who had bested him.

"Doctor Olivia Flanagan? Redhead, tall, pretty, smiles a lot?" she asked him.

"Yeah," I responded.

She turned to me for the first time since we had met and looked me square in the eyes, fiery light brown ones meeting an icy blue stare.

"I hate that bitch," she said plainly.

I cracked a smile and she smiled back. "Good, because I intend to kill her," I responded flippantly. She chuckled and did her hair up in a loose bun before running a diagnostic on her omni-tool. Satisfied that it was in working order, she hefted her plasma shotgun and walked over to Cade, plucking a pair of spare heatsinks from his utility belt and slotting them into her own.

"What kind of shotgun is that? It was very effective against those Corpsers. I've never seen anything like it," Cade gestured at her weapon.

She handed him her weapon and Cade immediately began inspecting it, eyeing the bulbous grey armor plating that gave it an insect-like shape.

" _Mi padre,_ he found it while serving during the Reaper War. It's called a Geth Plasma Shotgun, it fires superconducting plasma projectiles from a plasma core instead of the standard metal shavings that most weapons fire nowadays."

"Those are very rare, the Geth usually don't part with them willingly," I pointed out.

"The Geth that was using it had no need for it anymore. Anyways, I find that it is very useful against those monsters, shots to the body tend to not only destroy them but also those metal spiders that they hold," she answered simply.

Cade shouldered it and sighted down the gun. Like me he preferred sniper rifles, battle rifles, knives and pistols, usually eschewing the fast-firing assault rifles and close-range shotguns that Percival favored. The Geth Plasma Shotgun looked more like an impressionistic metal sculpture from the early 21st century rather than a weapon, but he nonetheless admired the organic and sleek-curvature of the weapon in his hands.

"Very curvy," he purred.

"Thank you, it was my father's favourite gun before he gave it to me," the technician responded, gently taking it the proffered weapon from his hands and clipping it to her armored back.

"I wasn't talking about the gun," Cade grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes and cursed rapidly in spanish. Cade laughed while I shook my head and shot her an apologetic look.

"So, what do we call you?" Cade asked her.

"My name is Camilla Martell, and you have a better shot at getting off this ship in one piece than getting with this, you pig," she gestured up and down her body.

"Ouch," I joked. Beside me Cade sighed dramatically but otherwise decided against inflaming her any further.

"Anyways, where are you two headed now?" Camilla inquired.

I nodded my head in the vague direction of the ship's stern. "Cade and I are headed towards the Bridge, Spectre Percival is also headed there with a group of survivors in tow. Once we're there were going to try to hail our ship for evacuation. Afterwards we intend to follow containment protocol, scuttle this ship and destroy these fucking things for good."

Camilla nodded. "Sounds good to me, mind if I go with you? I'm a communications and drive core technician. I've been monitoring the interference on my omni-tool, and I think that if you get me to the Bridge I might be able to reset the suite to clear the interference and patch you through to your ship so you can call for evacuation."

"I like this one, can we keep her?" Cade mocked pleaded. Camilla rolled her eyes threw a fake punch towards him that Cade slipped around. Cade chuckled and gently pushed her away, causing her to curse quietly at him in spanish.

"Come with us, we'll keep you safe," I assured her.

"Don't make a girl a promise if you can't keep it," she joked. "Don't worry, I'm not a total liability. I am not half bad with my shotgun, plus I have a few offensive and defensive modules installed into my omni-tool. I can hold my own in a fight," she assured me.

I swallowed and nodded slowly, my mind inadvertently going back to Sarah. Cade shot me a concerned glance but I refused to meet his eyes. "Then let's move out before more of these things find us. We both don't have much ammunition left, and I can only use my biotics for so long before I'm tapped dry," I told her.

I checked the meter on my Snakebite. I had about half-a-dozen more shots before I would have to find a new ammunition block, and maybe another two or three reloads on my Predator before it too was nothing more than a fancy paperweight. I suspected Cade had even less ammunition than I did for his Vindicator and Meera, although his dual Carnifex pistols likely still had relatively full ammunition blocks inside.

"Alright, that sounds like a good plan. Let me take point then, my shotgun doesn't run on a standard ammunition block and is _muy efectivo_ against these creatures," she said. Camilla brushed past the both of us and began heading back out into the shower room with her plasma shotgun raised and ready. We moved to follow behind her, with Cade in the middle and with me acting as the rearguard.

"More than happy to watch your rear," Cade in a low voice that only I could hear. Had Camilla heard him I had no doubt that Cade would have had to dodge a third plasma bolt. I sighed and shook my head again. A ship full of homicidal aliens ready to stab us in our faces and a bunch of stealthed saboteurs ready to shoot us in our backs and Cade still found time and inclination to be Cade.

I prayed for the soul of my friend and followed him out the room.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2037 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 19, Crew Quarters – Pedestrian Corridor 9E_

 _3 hours, 37 minutes after Outbreak_

"So what kind of omni-tool combat programs do you Spectre's use?" Camilla asked Cade as the three of us made our way down the empty corridor.

We were currently headed towards an elevator at the end of this long hall that would take us almost directly to the Bridge on deck 7. We had not encountered any more Corpsers since we had left the locker room and I sincerely hoped that that would remain true for the rest of our journey to the Bridge, although deep down I knew that Cade and I were most certainly not that lucky.

"Uh, Cloud and I both have state-of-the-art tactical cloaks installed into our armor," Cade responded as he rubbed his fringe nervously. "Aside from that, we have some top-level bypass and de-encryption modules and some of the best hacking programs that money can buy."

"Seriously, that's all?" Camilla said incredulously. "No combat or defensive programs? No Incineration, Defense Matrix, or Cryo Blast? Not even a simple Overload program?"

"I have my Arc and Homing grenades, and I might also have an old Overload program somewhere on my omni-tool," Cade said defensively. "I also carry four different guns, all of them chambered for slugs as big as your thumb, and an old metal spoon. I don't really think I need another way to kill someone."

"Yes, I can see your dual Carnifex pistols, very macho, except that this isn't the wild west, turian," Camilla snorted dismissively. I withheld a laugh, if only she knew. To be fair to Cade, he very, very, rarely used both Carnifex's at once, and usually only to show off.

Having a pistol in each hand worked great in the holo-films, but for real combat situations it was a terrible idea. The only reason why he had two at all times was because Cade was ambidextrous and because, well, generally you don't get to pick the hand that's keeping a bunch of sharp, vorcha teeth from tearing out your throat.

"Having a bunch of programs just slows you down, makes you hesitate in key moments. I don't know about you, but I don't intend to get my ass shot off while I'm cycling through a dozen different modules," Cade argued back.

But in his defense, Cade was right. Many inexperienced combat engineers I had known tended to load up their omni-tools with as many defensive and offensive programs as they could, adopting a "the-more-the-merrier" mindset and believing that a wider range of options would make them more combat effective.

It was a practice that the more experienced combat engineers and Spectre's seldom practiced. When you were being fired upon from all sides by an unseen assailant, or being charged by a pair of angry krogan, or being stabbed to death by nightmarish, cybernetic monsters, you really didn't want to be stuck cycling through a variety of programs, wasting your time picking the best one. Ideally you had the one or two that you were most proficient with, or better yet had a buddy at your back with a complementary set of programs covering your six.

"And what about you?" Camilla turned towards me. "Back at the shower room I saw you use your biotics to pull those two Corpsers off of me."

"I have an L7x custom Adept implant," I told her. "Singularity and Stasis specialties, although I can also create personal and group Barriers and your standard Warp, Throw and Pull fields. Otherwise I don't really use any offensive or defensive omni-tool programs either, unless you count my tactical cloak."

"Still better than this _pendejo,_ " she jerked her head at Cade, who shrank sheepishly into his armor. Also in my friend's defense, he was deadly proficient with his Black Widow sniper rifle, beating me in long-distance proficiency by a slight margin while I edged him out when it came to combat pistols.

We were about neck and neck when it came to burst-fire battle rifles, both of us favoring either the M-15 Vindicator or the N7 Valkyrie. There had been many missions when one of us had run out of ammunition for our snipers and had to use each other's spare battle rifle. My Vindicator was currently stored in my private locker aboard the SSV Excalibur, since I hadn't opted to take it with me. Luckily Cade had brought his, and it had proved useful in cutting a bloody swathe through the many Corpsers that had tried to eviscerate us.

"Here, let me," Camilla said as she grabbed Cade's arm and wrenched it towards her face. Without a glance to acknowledge my friends startled look of surprise, she activated her and his omni-tool and began playing with it.

"Hey, what are you—," Cade began in protest.

"Done," she said. A second later, Cade's omni-tool flashed a bright orange. With a satisfied look on her face, she turned her omni-tool back off and re-shouldered her plasma shotgun.

Cade looked at his omni-tool and smiled. I glanced over and saw that she had upgraded his Overload program, adding an extended range software patch and an intensity boost. That would be very useful in a fight, with the upgrades allowing Cade to shock an area about three meters in diameter.

Back in the hallway just before we had encountered the Chimera for the second time, Cade's Arc grenades had shocked several Corpsers in place, allowing me to destroy many of them simultaneously. The ability to repeatedly stun these monsters in place without having to resort to using his limited supply of Arc grenades would be invaluable if we were to survive.

"Just in case, it's very useful against enemy kinetic shields and you never know when you need to stun a bunch of targets, just remember to let it cool down between uses so that you won't overheat your omni-tool," she told him.

"I can't count the number of times my father told me it saved him fighting Marauders during the Reaper War, plus it's always better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it," Camilla lectured at the two of us.

"So you do care." Cade sighed dramatically, bringing the back of a gloved talon to his forehead. "And here I was thinking that I was nothing more than an extra body between you and those genocidal monsters."

"You are a lost cause." Camilla gave up and shook her head, smiling but refusing to further engage the childish turian.

We reached the elevator at the end of the corridor without any further trouble. With a sigh I turned to cover our six while Cade strode forwards and slapped a palm on the panel, calling the elevator to our floor. The indicator lit up to show that the elevator was currently on floor 21.

He turned to me and grinned infuriatingly, prompting me to scowl and flip him off. Camilla looked at the both of us in confusion but refrained from commenting on our childish antics, wisely deciding not to ask. After a few moments the elevator doors slid open with a slight chime and we filed inside. Cade palmed the button for deck 7 and the doors closed shut and instantly the elevator started to descend.

We stood awkwardly in silence as we waited for the elevator to do what elevators do. I tapped the trigger guard of my Snakebite as I watched the indicator shift painstakingly from 19, to 18, and then 17 ever so slowly. I sighed and shut my eyes, trying hard to forget the last time I was in an elevator with Cade and trying even harder to shake the phantom touch of a pair of soft, gentle hands on my face.

Hardly less than two hours had passed since then and yet to me it felt like a thousand years. I sighed again and tried hard to banish those thoughts from my mind, to focus on the mission at hand. I did now as I had done before, deciding to focus on the thought of revenge, clutching at it like a life-jacket to anchor myself in the present. In my mind's eye I saw Locke, the mad salarian, the quiet turian, and that psychotic red-headed bitch all lying dead at my feet.

Cade tilted his head towards Camilla. "So, where are you from?" he asked her. I listened closely, trying to both distract myself from my thoughts and to learn more about our new third squad member. As the elevator descended my thoughts of the dead must have decided that tormenting me internally did not suffice. I winced as began to feel an aching pressure build at the base of my skull and a slight ringing in my ears.

The female technician tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at Cade. "New Mindoir, my father moved there after the War and raised me by himself. I graduated from technical college there and enlisted in the Systems Alliance when I turned twenty, how about you?" Camilla asked him in return.

"Born and raised on Palaven back in 2286, My fa—" Cade began.

The pressure in my head built and built, the ringing in my ears had solidified into quiet, rapid whispers in a language that I did not recognize. It was then I realized that this wasn't just some physical manifestation of guilt cruelly called into being by my psyche. It was happening again. I failed to stifle a groan and pressed a gloved hand to my forehead.

Cade, as always, was the first to notice my distress. His mouth opened and I could see that he was trying to say something, but I couldn't hear him over the rising din of those infernal whispers. As if she was curious as to what had gotten Cade's attention,

Camilla turned her gaze towards me as well. Upon seeing me her brow knotted in worry, mirroring Cade's concerns. She placed her hand on my shoulder and her mouth moved, but like I could hear nothing but those stupid, fucking whispers. I gaped blankly at them, trying my hardest to quell the aching headache and utterly refusing to scream out loud for the whispers to shut the fuck up.

The indicator shifted from 14, to 13, and then 12, and finally the whispers and the headache slowly receded, as if someone had turned down a giant dial rather than flipped a switch.

I shook my head to clear out the last vestigial whispers and turned to look my friend in the eye. "Cade, I think it's nearby," I told him.

If a turian was capable of showing fear on their stone-like, immovable faces, Cade was showing it now. His finger beat a frantic rhythm on the trigger guard of his rifle and his eyes immediately darted to the ceiling above us. Not that I could blame him, anyone in their right state of mind would steer far away from 40-foot long synthetic abominations.

I shuddered as I saw it in my mind's eye. Four stunted forelimbs comprised of dead, twisted synthetic corpses, two larger hind limbs, that twisting, thrashing barbed tail. Worst of all was the fact that it did not possess a gaping maw ten sizes too large for its face and a bunch of metal and organic teeth that the Corpsers had. Instead, it had a tiny, almost human-sized mouth, situated right underneath that bright red krogan metal headplate.

"Spirits, the Chimera?" Cade asked.

I nodded grimly, tightening my grip on my own rifle. Seeing the sudden change in our demeanor at the mention of the Chimera, Camilla started shifting nervously from foot to foot, eyes panning between me and Cade.

"What's a Chimera?" she asked uneasily.

The elevator indicator shifted to display a dim 10, we were 3 decks away and about 50 meters from the Bridge. I turned to Camilla and put on the best cold-hearted killer face that I had, the one that made ninety-nine point nine percent of the galactic population stop and listen whole-heartedly and obey whatever I decided to stay next, lest they suffer a painful, gruesome death.

"It's big and it's deadly. If you see it, you don't fight it, you don't shoot it, you stay behind us and you do whatever we tell you to do."

"And while we're on the topic of acceptable courses of action," I continued, "if either Cade or I tell you to do something, you do it. You don't hesitate, you don't second-guess, you simply do it. Because if you don't you will die, or you'll get us killed, and I'm sure neither of us wants that."

When we had met Camilla, we had found her surrounded by half a dozen dead Corpsers, cursing angrily and shooting at another half-dozen. Later we had found out that she had not been cornered in that bathroom, but had rather moved there with a clear objective in mind —to retrieve a suit of armor and increase her chances at survival. My instincts had immediately pegged her as a brave, capable under pressure, unafraid to fight and unlikely to take shit from anyone.

But as she looked into my cold blue stare, I could tell that whatever she saw there frightened her more than the prospect of being torn apart by the twisted, synthetically-reanimated abominations that had been her former crewmates. Her eyes met mine and she took a moment to really let the gravity of my words sink in.

Neglecting to say anything, Camilla swallowed nervously before nodding resolutely to show that she understood. Satisfied, I looked back at Cade, who looked at me and also nodded approvingly at the crash course in survival that I had given our newest rookie. I'm sure he didn't want her to die either. As far as Camilla was concerned, Cade and I were the only laws that mattered aboard this ship, laws that had to be obeyed if she wanted to make it out of this nightmare alive.


	7. Chapter 7 - Assault on the Control Room

**Chapter 7 – Assault on the Control Room**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2114 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge main entryway_

 _4 hours and 14 minutes after Outbreak_

" _Mierda,_ this door isn't just electronically locked, it's welded shut," Camilla cursed angrily as she typed string after string of code into her omni-tool. She paused to tuck a strand of errant hair behind her ear before returning to her ruthless electronic assault on the door.

"Can you open it?"

The door to the Bridge was roughly a foot thick, made with reinforced poly-steel and further coated in a strong, titanium alloy designed to withstand RPG's, angry krogan pirates, and most certainly the biotically-assisted kicks that I tended to favor in situations that didn't require stealth and finesse.

Camilla huffed and blew another strand of hair out of her eyes. "I think so," she replied, "I can't cut through the door but I may be able to de-activate the omni-gel that they used to weld it shut. Shouldn't be too hard, whoever did it seems to have done a rushed job. I've already deactivated the electronic lock too, so once I get rid of the omni-gel it should open automatically."

"Can't you go any faster? We're kind of exposed out here to all kinds of bad things," Cade complained, his eyes darting nervously from wall to wall.

We were in a large vestibule right outside the Bridge. About four other open doors funneled directly into the vestibule, while directly across from us were the doors to the Main Central Passageway, which were oddly still sealed. Odd because Percival should have led the survivors right through there to await us on the bridge.

"If you think you can do it faster than me by smooth-talking it into opening with your big, fat mouth, by all means," Camilla snapped at him.

Cade grinned at her scathing response rather than respond with his own, which from the look in Camilla's eyes only served to further increase her anger. As much as I disproved of his childish antics, I guess I'd rather have Cade get under her skin than those freakish monsters. She turned her attention back to the door and continued working on the problem at hand.

"Cade, try and raise the Bridge and Percival again," I ordered him in an attempt to give him something to do that wasn't distracting to Camilla. The faster she could finish the faster less time we'd spend completely exposed. She nodded thankfully to me before resuming her work.

Cade spoke quietly into his comms. set for a few moments as I watched with apprehension. After about a minute, he turned to me and nodded sadly. I sighed and rubbed my eyes with my hand.

"No response, but no static either. Percival's probably not in range or he would have picked up, I also think that someone's on the Bridge and choosing not to respond," he reported.

Why someone wouldn't pick up the phone when we were right freaking here was beyond me. "Damn," I cursed. "Alright, stop trying for now, we don't want to give away our position to any saboteurs who might be listening."

"Wouldn't want to make it too easy," Cade smiled.

"Your mother should have followed the same advice," Camilla chimed in.

Cade gave her a light kick in the backside that sent her reeling off balance, causing her to let out a yelp of surprise and to curse at him in Spanish. I shot Cade an admonishing look and he shrugged sheepishly. I pointed two fingers back at the direction of the four doors that would serve as the most likely entry points for hostiles and he sighed and pointed his rifle towards them.

"About done," Camilla called out.

Cade sighed again, this time in relief, and slowly backed up to take position on one side of the door while I did the same on the opposite side. Camilla tapped a few more commands into her omni-tool and suddenly a soft whirr could be heard being emitted from the internal motors within the door. Cade and I tensed up, ready for whatever came next.

The doors slid open and the familiar sound of some rookie uselessly cocking their weapon reached my ears. Before I could throw up a Barrier, Cade, given ample warning by that sound, dove on-top of Camilla just as a withering hail of badly placed shots flew towards the door.

Camilla gave a muffled shout of surprise as a barrage of shots caused his kinetic shielding to flare and crackle. The shielding on Cade's turian Ghost Infiltrator armor was at least three times as strong as the standard factory-default set on Camilla's scavenged Elkoss Combine suit, had Cade not reacted with such speed she would surely have died just then.

Thankfully Cade's natural instinct was to get on top of a girl so Camilla was luckily able to avoid that untimely fate. I threw up a Barrier just as my friend's kinetic shields fizzled out, the bullets now bouncing off of my blue, fiery bubble instead of Cade.

"Wait! Don't shoot! Can't you see they're unchanged?!" I heard a flanged voice shout from within the Bridge.

The gunfire stopped and I let my Barrier fall with a wave of my hand before angrily marching into the room. Cade rose to his feet and snarled, obviously furious at having nearly been shot to death by a bunch of trigger-happy rookies. He dusted himself off and held out a hand to Camilla, who took it and pulled herself up, shaking uncontrollably at her close brush with death.

A human bridge officer with an angry look on his face and a smoking M-8 Avenger held in his hands scowled at another turian bridge officer, evidently the one who had spoken up.

I stormed up to the one holding the M-8 Avenger and punched him viciously in the gut, knocking the air out of him and causing him to double over in pain. Before he could drop to the ground, I threw my armored knee into his chin, snapping his neck back and throwing him flat on his back where he lay unconscious. I didn't bother to check for a pulse, instead turning an angry set of eyes onto the next bridge officer –a scared-looking female communications officer. She backed away as fast as she could, bumping into a salarian navigations officer.

I felt the barrel of what was most certainly an M-3 Predator press itself against the back of my head. I sighed inwardly and immediately dipped a few inches down, putting my head ever so slightly out of the way of the barrel. Lightning fast, I pivoted left and swept my left hand up to where the barrel of the gun had been, grabbing it and using my right to swiftly pry it out of the wielder's hands. Not an easy trick, and certainly not something you wanted to do when someone had a loaded gun to your head unless you were absolutely sure you could do it without getting your brains blown out.

I trained my appropriated M-3 Predator at the scowling face of Captain Jameson Farragut. I watched with satisfaction as Cade pulled out his Carnifex and pointed it directly at the Captain's back, well out of arm's reach I might add.

"Stand down, Spectre, or I will have you arrested and tried for treason!" Captain Farragut boomed.

A period of silence followed as the bridge crew watched our little stare-down, eyes wide and breath hitched. Captain Farragut was breathing deeply as he waited for my response, a thin river of sweat falling from his temple onto the lapel of his uniform. The silence and tension was palpable, a thick, heavy blanket that threatened to smother everyone in the room. I couldn't help it much longer, the big, stupid look on his face merely serving to incense me further.

I slowly began wheezing with laughter. Silently at first as I tried to hold it in, but the volume became progressively louder and louder as I tried and failed to stifle it. The M-3 Predator in my hands shook as I tried to suppress my chortles, but I failed horribly judging by the look of increasing anger on Captain Farragut's face. I blinked back a few tears in my eyes as my laughter intensified; now transitioning from a breathy, wheezing chortle into full-on mocking laughter.

Cade made eye contact with me from behind Captain Farragut and gave me a slight grin. Unlike pretty-boy Percival, who had a nice, friendly laugh that made it sound like he was always laughing with you, the kind you'd expect from a dude named Lancelot, and Cade who, like all turians with their inhuman anatomy, was only capable of producing a deep, throaty chuckle on the translators, my laughter always sounded mean in comparison. It would always start out as a wheeze as I tried to tamper it down, but despite my best efforts it would eventually transition into a weird sort of mocking laughter, as if I was watching you do something incredibly stupid and enjoying it.

And in my defense I was currently watching Captain Farragut do something incredibly stupid. Threatening a Spectre with treason in the line of duty, if that didn't bring a tear to my eye I didn't know what would. I wasn't Systems Alliance, I wasn't one of their fucking N7 boy scouts or those trigger-happy Alliance Corsairs. I was a Spectre. I was goddamn Special Tactics and Reconnaissance.

Maybe Farragut liked to hit the bottle more than I gave him credit for if he thought threatening me with treason would even remotely work. I most certainly wasn't going to fucking obey a man who had ordered his crew to shoot on sight, nearly killing my best friend, and in all likelihood was a danger to the survivors aboard this ship. What a fucking tosser.

"Operative Cloud, please lower your weapon!" pleaded a flanged voice that I recognized as belonging to the bridge officer who had called for the cease-fire.

I stopped laughing and turned to face the speaker, one eyebrow cocked in surprise.

"Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus, glad to know you're still alive," I greeted him, not once shifting my aim from the scowling mug of Farragut. I deliberately emphasized the 'you're', because if I couldn't shoot the idiot in front of me I could at least assuage my machismo with some good old passive-aggressive wordplay.

"Put down your weapon or I will have you hanged!" Farragut threatened loudly.

I ignored him, instead keeping my eyes on Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus. His eyes pleaded silently with mine, his mandibles drooped down towards the ground and his tone was calm and placating.

"Please, the situation is dire, the ship's overrun and we've lost contact with almost every single deck. We need to work together right now, not against each other," he begged.

Eventually I sighed and relented. Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus was right. I flicked the safety on and quickly removed the heatsink and the ammunition block from the M-3 Predator and stored them in my own utility belt for later. Satisfied, I tossed the useless paperweight at Farragut's feet, who wisely refrained from saying anything, instead simply picking up the weapon and shoving it in the hands of some poor bridge officer standing beside him.

Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus sighed in relief. Cade lowered his Carnifex and Camilla stepped out from behind him, eyes wide at the little Mexican stand-off that she had just born witness to. I saw maybe two dozen bridge officers all in the room, a few of them had M-8 Avengers or M-3 Predators but the majority of them were unarmed or had make-shift weapons. I looked around and saw no sign of Percival or my marines.

I turned to Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus. "Spectre Percival was supposed to be headed to the Bridge with a bunch of survivors in tow, have you had any contact with him?" I asked him.

Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus shifted uneasily, his eyes darting to Farragut briefly before looking back at me apologetically.

Farragut strode forwards, back straight and apparently unfazed at my earlier treatment of him. Either that or he didn't learn his lesson. What a fucking tosser.

Farragut adjusted his cuffs, smoothed out the front of his command uniform and drew himself up to his full height. "I ordered the Bridge sealed and any survivors turned away. I deemed the safety of the command crew of paramount importance, I could not risk the Bridge of this ship falling into the hands of those monsters."

A moment of silence fell over the Bridge, so quiet that for a moment I thought that I could hear my blood rushing through my arteries. I narrowed my eyes at Farragut. "You ordered the survivors turned away?" I growled.

"Yes, are you deaf, Spectre?" Farragut said disbelievingly.

Before I could do anything, Camilla walked up and threw a mean left hook right into the Captain's jaw. The captain gave a gasp of pain and dropped to his knees. Camilla moved forward, absolute murder in her eyes, and kicked him hard in the face as I had done to the other bridge officer, causing Farragut to flop onto his back in pain.

" _Pendejo!_ You let them die! You let them all die!" Camilla shrieked. She started forward again but Cade ran up and grabbed her gently around the waist, holding her back.

Farragut sat up and massaged his jaw where a red imprint was rapidly forming. "Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus! I want this woman seized and detained!" he roared angrily.

Camilla strained against Cade's grip. "I saw them! I saw them all get turned, one by one! Anna, Mairo, Tom, Lucius! My friends! You could have saved them! You could have let them in! I'll fucking kill you!" Camilla sobbed.

She strained for a few more moments against Cade's arms but eventually her anger was subsumed by the pain of the loss of her friends. Slowly she relented and turned to Cade, burying her face in his armor and sobbing while he gently stroked her back.

Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus and the rest of the bridge crew looked down, avoiding the eyes of their Captain and making no effort to seize Camilla like he had ordered. Cade looked at me and I nodded towards him. He led her away and sat her down in one of the chairs, talking quietly to her while he gently rubbed her upper arms. We all respectfully waited as she tried to calm herself down. Eventually her sobs receded to quiet sniffles, although tears still left great, glistening tracks down her face. She rubbed her eyes and brushed her hair back.

"Farragut, if you say one more word I will kill you," I threatened him. "Lieutenant-Commander, have you made any attempt to repair our communications?"

Barthilus saluted and nodded. "We made several attempts but the jamming signal is unlike anything we've ever seen. It's old, probably dates back to the Reaper War, and as a result none of us know how to scrub it or bypass it. We're still trying though," he reported.

Camilla sniffled once more then looked up towards us. "I might be able to do something about that. Before I went to technical school for the Alliance my father had me work on old drive cores and tech that he scrounged up during the Reaper War. I used to tinker around with old jamming devices, give me some time and I might be able to cut through the interference."

"Excellent, get started at the communications terminal. Cade, guard her," I ordered my friend.

Cade nodded and followed Camilla to a nearby console on the side of the room. I looked around the rest of the Bridge. Its layout was mostly intact since the last time I had been here. A massive, domed viewport made of composite plastic ringed the entire room, with a number of terminals and seats situated underneath. The large holo-table still stood in the center of the room, and I could see that a rough barricade of sorts had been formed around it, giving us a defensible position to fall back to in the event that the door was breached.

"Lieutenant-Commander, is it possible to activate the self-destruct from the Bridge? We failed in our objective to retrieve the Prometheus Project Data, we need to make preparations to destroy the ship, to follow containment protocol and prevent these things from spreading," I asked Barthilus.

Barthilus shook his head. "We can't, we believe the drive core in the main engine room has been decoupled. We can't fly, move, or initiate the self-destruct sequence without it and we haven't been able to send someone down to fix it. We don't know who would have decoupled it in the first place."

I growled and briefly outlined what we had learned about the saboteurs in the secondary engine room and back at the data archives. Barthilus and the rest of the bridge crew listened with their eyes wide and mouths agape as I told them about the sabotage of the project from within, the cause of the outbreak, and the betrayal of Doctor Olivia Flanagan.

"Trust no one," I finished. "We don't know the extent of the saboteur presence aboard this ship, so in the meantime be on your guard."

Barthilus and the crew nodded soberly and exchanged uneasy glances with each other. Farragut scowled, his eyes shooting daggers at me, clearly chomping at the bit to insinuate that we were working in tandem with the saboteurs and that we were here to finish off the Bridge crew. Thankfully for him, he kept his mouth shut.

As much as I'd like to suspect Farragut, he just didn't seem the type. He was a prat, a self-concerned jackass who cared more about his ship, his skin, and his promotion than the lives of his crew, but that didn't make him a likely candidate as a saboteur. If anything, to be made the Captain of the SSV Hippocrates would have required such thorough vetting that it was highly doubtful that a saboteur could have been seeded directly into the command chair.

Just as Doctor Flanagan had not been part of the head scientists of the Prometheus Project, I suspected that the saboteurs had been seeded into the lower echelons.

"Lieutenant-Commander, have your men erect another barricade around the main door, but construct it so that it funnels those things directly into our field of fire," I ordered him.

"Sir," he acknowledged.

Just as he was about to wave a group of officers to the door, a low, rolling howl echoed in from beyond the doors.

I turned towards the source of the sound. In the murky darkness beyond the main doors, a menacing pair of red lights blinked into existence above a round, misshapen mass of blue light that shifted as the gaping maw that it emitted from snarled and undulated.

I could see the outlines of jagged metal teeth casting shadows from within and the smaller outlines of what had to be the original teeth of whatever species the Corpser had originally been. Another set of red orbs and a pulsing blue light appeared to the left of that one, and then another to its right, and then another, until it seemed as if the vestibule beyond the doors was just a mass of red and blue light.

A large krogan Corpser appeared in the gloom of the doorway, his massive green headplate slightly scrapping the door frame as it made its way inside. It stomped in and swung its head around the Bridge.

Huge metal spikes towered from its back hump and its shoulders, scratching deep gouges into the edges of the door as it entered. Its heavily-muscled synthetic arms flexing angrily, causing the long metal claws embedded in its forearm to shift. I swallowed and brought my Snakebite up to. It was much larger than the last krogan Corpser I had fought. There was no way in hell that my Stasis field would stop something that big.

My hesitation was all that it needed. The krogan Corpser charged forwards and rammed itself into the nearest bridge officer. The salarian screamed as it was impaled on the shoulder spikes.

I pulled the trigger on my Snakebite, sending a round directly into his headplate and causing it to stumble. I cursed as I saw that the headplate remained intact, albeit now with a large crack running through it. I pulled at the cooling lever on my Snakebite as the Corpser roared and backhanded another female bridge officer who had been too slow to get out its way, sending her flying headfirst into a console.

I fired off another shot directly into its headplate, cracking it completely in half. I could see thick, synthetic cabling snaking out of it. A rain of coagulated, thick red blood flew from it as it shook its head angrily back and forth. The howling and snarling intensified as several more Corpsers entered the room as we were preoccupied with the large ex-krogan and began running at the rest of the bridge crew. Captain Farragut ran to take shelter behind the holo-table as Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus and the rest of the armed bridge crew began firing at them.

Three resounding cracks thundered throughout the room. The krogan fell silent as all three punched through the weakened headplate and ruptured its head in a shower of bloody gore and sparks. Immediately a mass of Crawlers tore their way out of its bloated belly and began infecting the two bridge officers it had killed, reanimating the woman he had flung onto the console and the salarian still impaled on its shoulder.

Another trio of cracks echoed loudly as Cade fired Meera into the heads of the reanimated officers, tearing off the woman's just as she started to rise and ending the newly-minted salarian Corpser mid-howl, just as its mouth was ripping itself open. The third shot went into what used to be the brain of another Corpser, just as it was about to stab a hapless crew member.

"I'm out!" called Cade. He clipped Meera onto his back and pulled out his Vindicator. He sent a crackling Overload into the front ranks of the Corpsers, stunning a pair of them, before drilling four bursts into their twitching bodies. Behind him Camilla gave the Corpsers a frightened glance before returning her attention to the console.

I fired my Snakebite and killed two more Corpsers before its ammunition block also ran dry. Cursing, I clipped it onto my back and threw one of my remaining sticky grenades into their front ranks, incinerating one more Corpser and demolishing a mass of the small, spider-like Crawlers that were scuttling their way towards the bridge survivors. I switched to my M-3 Predator and felt that familiar tingle at the base of my skull where my amp was located. I was instantly wreathed in blue fire, ready to use my biotics on the synthetic horrors.

A few more bridge members fell to the immense onslaught but Barthilus managed to direct the remainder of armed survivors admirably. Individually none of them were great shots so he called out targets of opportunity, calling for the survivors to combine their fire on Corpsers who were getting too close to a stray crew member or on a pack of Crawlers who were too close to comfort.

Meanwhile Farragut watched from behind the holo-table, his hands clutching a pistol he had appropriated from one of the dead crew members, the one that I had happened to strip the ammunition block from. Under different circumstances I would have found it hilarious, would have pointed it out to Cade and Camilla and we would have had a jolly little laugh, but for now I was fighting for my life and for the lives of the surviving crew members.

"I did it! We have comms!" Camilla crowed in victory. Throwing her fist exuberantly into the air, she whooped and laughed brightly at her success.

"Great job!" Cade called out. He had stalwartly covered her throughout the duration of the firefight, protecting her as she worked to establish our communications. He and Camilla were almost back-to-back, her frantically typing on her console, sometimes pausing to type something on her omni-tool, while he fired his M-15 Vindicator at anything that seemed to be taking an interest in the preoccupied technician.

"Thanks!" she smiled. She quickly turned from the console and picked up her Geth Plasma Shotgun. Her omni-tool lit up as she lobbed an Incineration bolt into a group of Crawlers, then followed up with a volley of shots that burned gaping holes into the bodies of a pair of asari Corpsers, destroying them and the Crawlers within.

My comm. crackled to life and I could hear the voice of the flight helmsman of the SSV Excalibur filter its way patchily through. " _Spectre Operative Cloud! This is Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova! We've lost contact for hours, what's happening?"_ she asked urgently.

"Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova—Val!" I shouted into my comms. set. "We're currently on the bridge of the SSV Hippocrates. Ship is fully compromised, we're under attack from crew members infected with some sort of virulent pathogen. We were unable to contain it. The ship is lost—I repeat, the ship is lost. Maintain minimum safe distance!" I barked at her.

" _We read you Spectre, five by five. Standby for reinforcements!"_ Val radioed back.

I cocked my head in confusion. "Negative! Maintain minimum safe distance! Do not get close to the ship!" I yelled in frustration.

I stopped firing and looked out the domed viewport behind us. Off in the distance I could see the sleek white and blue silhouette of the SSV Excalibur flash by, as quick and agile as a minnow, and felt a bubble of hope spring up from within the depths of my chest.

I saw a bright flash as a number of inky black pods ejected themselves from the bottom of the ship, gentle blue mass effect fields erupting from a series of jets affixed to the pods and pushing them through the darkness of space. They propelled themselves towards the domed viewport of the Bridge and latched on to it. Even from within the Bridge I could feel the viewport vibrate as a series of bright-blue lasers emitted from the base of the pods, each one creating a circular incision into the viewport large enough to fit a man through.

There was a dull clatter as a dozen circular pieces of viewport tumbled to the ground, followed by a loud hiss as the pods sealed themselves tight against the remaining viewport, ensuring that the room was still completely pressurized and sealed. That slight ribbon of hope creeping up my chest blossomed into a bright, ball of happiness as I watched a dozen individuals in black, angular armor fall out of their pods onto the deck of the Bridge and start unleashing a torrential rain of gunfire upon the encroaching horde.

Each soldier had a full-faced helmet with a narrow visor where the eyes would be, much like my own helmet, except that theirs were colored bright red whereas mine was a dark, navy blue. I knew that they too displayed a state-of-the-art heads-up-display that monitored everything from temperature to humidity, pressure, toxins, element zero nodes and heartbeats, with the ability to cycle through settings such as thermal, infrared, night-time, and a dozen other functions.

Their armor was completely jet black, lacking the dark-blue trim that adorned parts of my own armor and possessing a more angular, straight-lined design that allowed them to blend in to the various ship environments that they often operated in. The only exception was a small white knight astride a white horse, holding a white lance couched forwards atop their left pauldrons. On the right I could see individual name tags, rank and blood-types.

And best of all yet, each of them were loaded down with a variety of weapons and grenades. I could see that each of the twelve had their signature N7 Silenced Hurricanes and M11 Suppressors—perfect weapons for boarding operations in locations with little room to maneuver—either in their hands or strapped to the small of their backs. A number of them carried N7 Valkyries and M7 Lancers, while a pair of them had M-23 Katana Shotguns. One of them, a hulking marine about seven feet in height with a half-naked non-regulation pin-up girl stenciled onto his breastplate even carried a massive M-76 Revenant.

The Alliance Jaegers had arrived.

They immediately paired off in teams of two and began coordinating fire into the oncoming horde of Corpsers, bringing down a dozen in the span of seconds and pushing back a dozen more. The large Jaeger, the one with the M-76, upon seeing the Crawlers tear their way through the fallen Corpsers' stomachs focused his fire on any of the Crawlers released by the deaths of their hosts at the hands of his fellow Jaegers. The large magazine and rapid firing rate of the M-76 Revenant making it highly effective at eradicating large numbers of the infectious Crawlers.

Beside him was a shorter, more wiry Jaeger with the words "Accer" crudely carved onto the right side of his helmet. In his hands he held a silenced N7 Hurricane which he used to fire short, concise ten-round bursts into the heads of nearby Corpsers, punching through any armor plating they might have grown around their heads and cracking what remained of their skulls and brains underneath.

My eyes grew wide as I saw the tell-tale flicker of biotics dance around his arms and neck. He threw out a hand, a translucent blue wave burst out and threw a trio of Corpsers onto the ground. He then fired on his incapacitated targets, felling them quickly and efficiently.

"Accer! Warp follow-up, left flank!" I roared. The black-clad Jaeger nodded and held his fire, waiting for me to prime our targets.

My amp sparked to life and I flicked my left hand towards a pack of Corpers on our left. A swirling blue vortex shot out and pulled them snarling off of their feet, mouths snapping open and shut as they screeched at the interruption of the hunt.

Immediately, faster than I could have done if I had attempted this maneuver on my own, the biotic Jaeger threw out a bright, shimmering Warp bolt that collided with my Singularity. The shifting mass effect fields interacted violently with each other and detonated, tearing the Corpsers and their Crawler occupants to bloody, mechanical shreds. I smiled at our handiwork and signaled to him again.

"Again! Warp follow-up, right flank!" I shouted to him.

My hand flicked forwards again, my amp twitching in slight protest at being forced to throw out two powerful Singularities in a row. It burned a little but I tampered down the pain. Either we ended this fight soon or we would be overrun.

The Corpsers that had been close to the left flank but not close enough to have been caught in our biotic explosion shifted ever so slightly to the center. As I had suspected, these were not mindless killing machines, but rather more like rabid animals—they had some semblance of a survivors instinct.

My left hand flicked forwards again, and this time a massive Singularity swirled into existence and hit the right flank of the Corpsers, ripping nearly a score of them off their feet. Faster than I could blink, a roiling, massive blue Warp came out hurtling out of the corner of my eye to slam loudly into my Singularity, detonating it even more violently than the last one, ripping great gouges into the deck of the Bridge and incinerating a few Corpsers that hadn't even been caught in my Singularity.

Our attempts successfully thinned their right flank and caused many of the surviving Corpsers to shift to the center. They were now densely packed, elbowing and tripping into each other as they continued their merciless charge right into our firing lane, snarling and howling, spittle flying from their nightmarish maws.

One of the Jaegers with a set of Captains bars on his armor and a fancier, bulkier helmet made a hand gesture. Immediately, half of the Jaegers ripped fragmentation grenades off of their armor and tossed them at the remaining Corpsers all bunched up in the center, tearing them and their Crawler parasites to bloody ribbons.

He waved his hand again and six of the Jaegers split off into teams of three. They sprinted to the main door, ignoring any wounded limbless Corpsers who snapped at their heels, and removed components for a mass-effect barrier from their armored backpacks.

As the other Jaegers covered them, they affixed the bars to either side of the main door and activated them. A wall of blue light erupted over the doors, effectively sealing them off. Although no more Corpsers remained outside of the Bridge, the portable barrier would be much more effective than any make-shift barricade we could cobble together on such short notice.

With the help the Jaegers, the surviving Bridge crew under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus finished off the last of the Corpsers. A silence fell over the Bridge as everyone took a moment to breath a collective sigh of relief at having survived.

The smell of burning heatsinks, rotted flesh, and biotic residue hung heavily on the air. I saw Camilla lean with one arm on Cade's shoulder, Cade having dropped to his knees with his rifle across his lap in exhaustion. Farragut finally rose up from where he had been hiding the entire fucking time behind the holo-table, eyes shifting nervously from wall-to-wall, relief etched on his face at having survived the entire ordeal unscathed. Barthilus was tending to an asari crew-member with a nasty gash down her arm.

"Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova, you beautiful son of a bitch, thank you," I radioed back to the SSV Excalibur.

" _You're welcome, Spectre. Maybe you'll buy me a drink next time we're on the Citadel?"_ my pilot chuckled.

"I'll buy you a whole damn bar, you really saved our asses there," I chuckled back.

" _Does that mean you'll start calling me Val? Instead of Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova?"_ Val asked hopefully over the now-clear communication channel.

"No, Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova. We're currently taking care of casualties and consolidating our defensive position on the Bridge. Maintain minimum safe distance and standby for further orders," I shot back at her although the sarcastic tone was missing from my jab. Instead my tone betrayed just how happy I was that we had survived.

Val sighed heavily over the comms. " _Roger that, Spectre. SSV Excalibur holding off, standing by for further orders."_

A few meters away Cade met my eyes and chuckled softly before shaking his head and turning to whisper something in Camilla's ear. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but Camilla also turned her gaze towards me, her eyes sparkling with relief and humor, and laughed quietly. I flipped them both off good-humoredly, prompting both of them to laugh even louder, before making my way towards the men who had saved our lives.

I made my way over to where the commander of the Jaegers was busy directing his men to stack any intact Corpsers bodies off to the side. One of them—Accer I believe—turned his full-faced helmet towards me and nodded in my direction. I nodded back at him. Without the two of us working in tandem, the situation aboard the Bridge might have been completely fubar, a situation that not even Cade nor I might have survived. Our teamwork had undisputedly allowed us all to survive that hellish situation, creating the opportunity for the rest of the Jaegers to destroy all the attacking Corpsers and allowing them to seal off the Bridge.

Their commander saw me approaching and walked over to meet me halfway. He hooked his M7 Lancer to the back of his armor and unsealed his helmet, holding it in the crook of his arm and revealing a tanned, weathered face with a long scar over his right eyebrow.

He looked to be in his mid-to-late forties, which was somewhat unusual but not unheard of for a soldier with the rank of Captain. Either he had been held back due to incompetency or had opted to defer promotions in order to stay with his men. Judging from his performance during the attack, I suspected it was the latter.

His hair was black but slightly graying, and he had a rough, five-o-clock shadow and bright, grey eyes that looked like they had seen their fair share of shit. He was about six feet tall and from the looks of it quiet combat-fit. He held out a hand that I promptly shook. He had a strong, firm grip.

"Captain Elias Murgen, 7th Jaeger Battalion, Delta Company, Commanding Officer of 1st Platoon and Jaeger Team One, we didn't really get a chance to properly meet aboard the SSV Excalibur," he introduced himself.

"Spectre Operative Cloud, that one over there is Spectre Operative Cade Kitiarian. You really saved our asses here Captain," I thanked him.

Captain Murgen snorted dismissively. "Looks to me like you also saved our asses just as hard, I saw what you and Burton did."

He waved his hand and two of the Jaegers moved up to flank him. One of them was the biotic specialist that I had worked with, while the other was of medium height and build.

Murgen waved his hand at the shorter one. "This is First Lieutenant Johnathan Bradford, in command of Jaeger Team Two and second-in-command of my platoon."

Bradford removed his helmet, revealing a serious face with a standard-issue crew cut. He nodded respectfully at me before throwing me an unnecessary salute which I did him the honor of returning.

Murgen then waved his hand at the taller, wiry biotic. "This is Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton, our platoon's biotic specialist, currently attached to Jaeger Team Two. Likes to be called Accer, not that I blame him," he added wryly.

The biotic unsealed his helmet, revealing a youthful, boyish face that was half Asian and maybe half European. He stepped forward and grabbed my outstretched hand, shaking it vigorously while his thick eyebrows shot up as he regarded me curiously.

"That was some damn good biotic work you did there, I've never seen Singularities that fucking big!" he said enthusiastically.

"Thanks, you're not bad yourself. You had some damn good follow-ups," I returned appreciatively.

"Yeah, I specialize in Warps and Reaves, too bad Alliance standard L6x amps aren't rated for Singularities, not that I would know how to cast one even if I could. What are you using?" he craned his neck around me in an attempt to spot my amp.

Normally if anyone else had tried to invade my personal space, I would have told him to fuck off, either before or after I had elbowed them in their goddamn noses, but something about this young marine made me trust him and withhold my general tendencies. Either it was the fact that we had both worked together to save the lives of dozens of individuals, or the fact that his boyish face seemed incapable of guile or deceit, nonetheless I found myself instantly taking a liking to the young, enthusiastic biotic.

"L7x implants, top-of-the-line, you won't get them from any average Alliance Quartermaster, even if you're a Jaeger," I told him apologetically.

He whistled appreciatively, "Damn, that's nice. They gave me the choice between L6x's or L6n's when I signed up, but I figured the L6n's would get me killed since I'd be tempted to go charging right in every chance I got."

I chuckled. The L6n's were programmed for "Vanguard" skillsets. Biotic Charges, Novas, Shockwaves, they were all absolutely devastating in close quarters combat compared to the standard Warps and Reaves that a specialist with an L6x "Adept" skillset might possess. It would be like comparing a sledgehammer to a scalpel.

As devastating as the Vanguard skillset was, they required peerless discipline, ruthless training, and a high degree of skill to use effectively and not die. I've seen a few stupid rookies who, newly outfitted with L6n's and cocky as hell, decided to biotically charge right into enemy formations. Sure, they did immense physical damage, heck they might even get to throw a Nova explosion too, killing more bad guys. But afterwards, they would be surrounded, taking incoming fire from all sides, and then they'd inconveniently just die, leaving you a man down and up to your fucking ass cheeks in angry Vorcha.

Alliance Jaegers, also known as Joint Aerial, Extravehicular, and Ground Recovery Specialists, were a relatively recent addition to the Systems Alliance military, their formation dating back maybe two decades during the early aftermath of the Reaper War. Originally consisting of a ragtag platoon of specially-trained marines and veterans of the Reaper War, the effectiveness and reputation of the Jaegers in deep space anti-slavery and piracy operations led to their rapid growth and expansion.

In the aftermath of the Reaper War, not everyone was willing to play ball, to help refugees or survivors of devastating Reaper Invasions build new lives. In the wake of the void left by the Reapers, slavery flourished and usurped their place as the foremost galactic menace.

Displaced, homeless refugees were viewed as the ultimate resource for rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and ravaged colonies. Spearheaded by surviving Batarian Slavers and perpetuated by desperate colonial and industrial groups, slaves of every race and species were kidnapped from surviving colonies and refugee camps and shipped off to rebuild shattered cities.

While never occurring outright on main planetary hubs such as Palaven, Thessia, or even Khar'shan, many of the fringe colonies, especially batarian ones, on far-flung planets such as Bahak, Aratoht, or Erzsbat had large populations of slaves. Refugees would either be snatched directly from their beds by bold slavers, or would be drawn by promises of work and safe refuge, only to arrive at such locations and discover that they were to be forced into indentured servitude.

In 2188, some furious Alliance Commander had decided that enough was enough. She pulled together a bunch of Reaper War veterans who shared her views – N7's, corsairs, marines, even ex-cops and mercenaries — and shipped them straight to Mars. For nine months, they trained to board derelict Batarian Cruisers, old Salarian Spy Corvettes, decommissioned Turian Hierarchy Naval Vessels, even old Systems Alliance Warships, not to mention every conceivable type of merchant and civilian ship that could be possibly retrofitted for slaver use.

After six months of brutal training, with a casualty rate that was rumored to be nearly 10% and multiple spacing accidents, the newly-christened Jaegers boarded a ship and flew around the Sol System. In the first year, in the Sol system alone, they boarded a staggering total of 48 slaver ships, nearly a ship a week. They saved an estimated 6,000 slaves, were responsible for the deaths and incarcerations of approximately 800 slavers, and were hailed by the Systems Alliance and the galaxy at large as heroes. A platoon of determined soldiers flying around in a battered-old stealth frigate did all that.

The Commander got a promotion and was bumped to Admiral. She was then told to expand the program and within a year a whole battalion of Jaegers were produced, the majority of them pulled from the Alliance Military. Some of them were N7's, with most of them sporting an Interplanetary Combatives Training Designation of at least N3, and more than a few were standard rank-and-file alliance marines or ex-law enforcement.

No matter what branches they came from, all of them were subjected to the same ruthless training, all of them drilled to board not only every kind of ship in existence, but also buildings and shuttles and even ocean-faring ships, and not only in vacuum but also in free-fall and on the ground, hence their moniker. Once that first battalion was produced, rumor has it that the Alliance admiral quietly retired. New Jaegers were soon trained by veteran Jaegers and soon a new generation of heroes rose to bring order to a turbulent galaxy.

The casualty rate of the Jaegers was extremely high at first with many of them being either spaced or lost when slaver ships chose to self-destruct rather than surrender their live cargo, but they quickly almost single-handedly destroyed slavery in Systems Alliance territory within the first half-decade of their conception, saving hundreds of thousands of slaves.

Soon they were called upon to assist in key asari, turian, salarian and even krogan systems. They eradicated slavery in much of council space, bringing law and order to a post-Reaper War galaxy that was fraught with those who preyed upon the weak. In light of their immense success, a new insertion method was developed by a group of salarian engineers specifically for the Jaegers dangerous method of entry.

Although the technical name eludes me, they were colloquially known as "Grab pods". These single-occupant pods each contained a single Jaeger soldier. They could be released from ships and either manually or remotely piloted to anywhere on the target ship. Generally they would attach to either the Bridge or the hangars, or anywhere where the armor or hull was thinnest.

Mass effect fields would both drive the pods to their target location and keep the pods in place as powerful element-zero lasers carved a hole in their hull. The pods would then seal tightly to the make-shift entry points, ensuring that the entry point remained pressurized, and the Jaeger would enter from there, weapon out and ready to sabotage, secure, or neutralize targets of opportunity. The pods could be programmed to attach to multiple points, allowing Jaegers to breach simultaneously from multiple locations, or they could attach all in roughly the same spot and suddenly the enemy had a team of highly trained soldiers breathing down their necks.

This greatly reduced the primary cause of casualty that Jaegers suffered , which was to be spaced during insertion, and dramatically increased their effectiveness. Within a decade of their conception, a battalion was posted in almost every major system, stationed in platoons aboard a flotilla of ships specifically designed to carry Jaegers in and out of any high-risk recovery missions. The SSV Excalibur was one of these ships.

Slavery soon ceased becoming a major problem, with its practice limited to die-hard batarian fanatics, and even they would soon be eradicated as the Slaver Fringe Wars culminated in 2201 with the battle of Bahak, the ill-fated battle that had earned Percival his fame and made the Jaegers even more of a legend.

While slavery was still practiced, it was no longer widespread, and the Jaegers gradually expanded their operations to include hostage-rescue, counter-terrorism, and even peacekeeping missions. While every Jaeger was still forged in the brutal training regime that the original Alliance admiral had designed, they were now considered to be the premier fighting force that the galaxy had to offer, a bright standard of everything that was good that the galaxy at large could rally behind, moreso than the galaxy could with the shadowy salarian Special Tasks Group or the reclusive Spectres.

Rumor has it that the Turian Hierarchy, the Krogan Federation, and even the Quarian and Geth Consortium were currently negotiating with Systems Alliance High Command, looking to cross-train, share equipment and tactics, and even get their own soldiers accepted into the ranks of the Jaegers. The Salarian Union and Asari Republics would also frequently request Jaeger assistance in their own systems, and in an act of goodwill the Systems Alliance chose to do so free of charge and even allowed co-opted Jaeger platoons to be temporarily folded into asari and salarian command structures for the duration of their service to better facilitate military cohesion.

This greatly enhanced interspecies cooperation, reduced xenophobia, and promoted galactic trust and unity. Out of the rubble of the Reaper War and amidst the lawlessness that followed that terrible time came this one, shining example of what the people of this galaxy could achieve if we all chose to help each other.

Accer sighed ruefully. "You know, even if I found someone willing to sell an L7x, I probably wouldn't be able to afford it anyways. The Systems Alliance pays shit, and has even shittier hazard pay. I can barely even afford my apartment right now," he joked.

I chuckled and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "We get out of this mess alive, and I'll buy you an L7x," I promised.

His eyebrows shot up, "I didn't know Spectres were paid so well."

I chuckled again. "We're not at all, but thankfully the bad guys are, if you catch my drift."

He laughed, then moved back to assist his fellow Jaegers in reinforcing the Bridge and cleaning up the bodies.

My comms. set fizzled on and I jolted to full alertness when I saw that I was getting hailed by Percival.

" _Cloud! You guys on the Bridge? We heard gunfire!"_ he cried.

I jammed down hard on my comms. set's transmit trigger, "Percival, Cade and I are currently on the Bridge, we've linked up with a bunch of fellow survivors and managed to re-establish communications with the SSV Excalibur," I told him. "It is damn good to hear your voice, mate."

"Is that slaps?" Cade called out. I nodded, prompting Cade to break out in a wide grin, then turned my attention back to Percival.

"We've received reinforcements from the SSV Excalibur, two Jaeger teams under the command of Captain Murgen jumped ship and directly inserted into the Bridge, we're currently locking it down."

" _Roger that, we're about 50 meters away. The Bridge was sealed when we got there so I decided to hold up in a nearby security armory and wait for you to arrive. Picked up a couple of security personnel, maintenance technicians and a few scientists hiding in a closet too, also Sergeant Mardinus and the marines are green,"_ Percival assured me.

I closed my eyes in relief and rubbed my brow with my gloved hand, trying to hide how pleased I was at not only finding out that all my marines were alive but that Percival had also succeeded where I had failed, saving several maintenance technicians and some scientists.

"That is damn good to hear. Be advised, we were unable to complete our objective. Saboteurs intercepted and acquired the Prometheus Project Data and we were unable to pursue. Consider them skilled and highly dangerous," I confessed quietly.

A few moments of silence on the other end. " _Roger that, it's okay man, we'll find them. How's Sarah?"_

It was the question that I had been fearing. My finger hovered over the transmit trigger for a second before I moved it away, choosing instead to rub my jaw and let out a sigh. My hand drifted from my jaw to the pocket on my utility belt which I had stored the photo she had given me of her and her family. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a moment to compose myself for a few seconds before keying my comms. set reluctantly.

"Doctor Messner is KIA," I reported.

Percival stayed silent for almost a full minute. I kept my eyes fixed on an arbitrary spot on the wall as I waited for him to respond. Just when I thought that maybe he had lost connection, my comms. set lit up again.

" _Not your fault,"_ he assured me.

"I know."

Percival sighed over the comm. " _Alright, we're about 25 meters out. I'll see you guys soon."_

"Roger that. And Percival?"

" _yeah?"_

"Bring some goddamn food."


	8. Chapter 8 - Time Out

**Chapter 8 – Time Out**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2227 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge_

 _5 hours and 27 minutes after Outbreak_

I had my back casually up against the edge of a console as I chewed absentmindedly on one of Percival's ration bars, watching the ongoing clusterfuck that was the impromptu war council between Percival, Captain Murgen, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus, and Farragut with mild interest.

To my left sat Cade and Camilla, silently lounging in a pair of chairs, their eyes also observing the ongoing debate between the divided officers. Like me, they both decided to use the downtime to refuel. Cade delicately picking dried strips of cured meat out of a ration bag while Camilla took tentative bites out of a piece of my ration bar that I had given her.

I never understood why Percival always packed strawberry-flavored bars. I had never seen him eat one or even take a bite from one in the history of ever, not in the dozens of missions and half a decade that we'd ran together. As tempting as it was to assume that he deliberately chose to pack the shittiest flavor just out of spite, given the fact that I routinely borrowed his ration bars when we were out in the field, the truth was he probably relegated himself to the crappier flavors so that I could have more of the better ones.

I sighed and stuffed the rest of it in my mouth, grimacing at the taste. On my right stood Rake and the rest of his team, lined up with their backs straight and likewise intently observing the drama unfold. For the last twenty minutes, Percival and Barthilus were wearily insisting that recoupling the drive core should be our primary objective, while Farragut was vehemently arguing against it, instead insisting that we should call for reinforcements and secure the ship.

To top it all off, a new issue that had cropped up during our diagnostic sweep of the ship. A biohazard had been detected in one of the biology labs, causing the SSV Hippocrates to enter a state of lock-down, rendering the ship's lifeboats and hangar doors completely inoperable. We'd have to investigate and solve the problem before we could even think about evacuating.

Acting as the unofficial DMZ between the two factions was Captain Elias Murgen and First Lieutenant Jonathan Bradford, commanding officer and second-in-command of the Alliance Jaegers from the Excalibur respectively. Murgen acted as an arbiter to both sides, pushing for either party to bring to board considerations and hidden factors that might strengthen each side's case, despite the fact that he likely supported Percival and Barthilus.

Rake, or Gunnery Chief Rakiharu Kinzo, leaned in and whispered in my ear. "What do you think will happen, sir?" he asked.

I finished chewing my mouthful, quickly swallowed the rest of the bar and making a face at the taste as I did so before turning to answer his question.

"One team is going to hit the engine room and then the biology lab. Then we're going to blow this fucking ship and kill every last one of these creatures, Gunnery Chief." I answered simply. Systems Alliance captain, commanding officer of the SSV Hippocrates, Farragut could be the Primarch of Palaven for all I cared. He could kiss my ass, right after he kissed his ship goodbye.

"Both the main engine room and the biology lab in question are up on deck 12, about halfway through the ship. It makes sense that we'd hit the engine room first before moving to biology, either way we need to fix both issues before we can get off this ship. But regardless of their locations we can't in good conscience lift the locks on all the lifeboats and hangar doors without securing the destruction of the ship first. We can't run the risk of having these things get out before we secure a way to destroy them." Soph explained to him.

Jay scratched behind his ear. "Why would the saboteurs even bother unhooking the drive core in the first place? And what's with the bio-hazard? Wouldn't that also trap them on the ship with the hazard and these creatures?"

Fly nudged Jay "Probably because they're bat-shit crazy, brother, when you're just a grunt sometimes it's best to leave all the 'why's' to your CO"

"I think it all ties back into the fact that whoever these saboteurs are, they don't want any of the crew escaping" Soph answered him.

I quietly agreed with the technical specialist, although a myriad of questions still nagged me. First and foremost being what the saboteurs stood to gain from unleashing these monsters aboard the ship. The fact that they had sabotaged our air, our communications, even our engines all seemed to point to the fact that the saboteurs really did not want any survivors on this ship. Did they release these things in an attempt to wipe out the crew and take the ship for themselves? Did they have some sort of fail-safe or any protective measures in place that would protect them from these creatures or the failing ship systems?

Finally, my mind went back to my encounter in the data archives. The rogue N7 had been quite insistent on not letting the crazed salarian kill me. If they wanted to eliminate the ships' crew, why would he balk at the death of a few Spectres? None of it made any sense to me. I couldn't even begin to guess at their true overall objective.

A loud bang jolted our attention back to the war council. "This ship is the headquarters of the Systems Alliance Research and Development Division and is the exclusive property of the Systems Alliance!" Captain Farragut loudly complained, his hand slapping the holo-table in anger. "I cannot allow you to destroy this ship! We should stay here, call for reinforcements to destroy these creatures!"

Percival rubbed the bridge of his nose and replied much more calmly. "Captain Farragut, we absolutely cannot allow a single one of these creatures to leave this ship. If we call for reinforcements we stand to increase the risk of exposure and increase the number of potential infection vectors available to these creatures. If the Hippocrates were to be suddenly docked with a dozen relief craft, that's a dozen more ways that one or more of these things might find a way off. If even a single one of these things manage to find their way off this ship, we could be seeing these things spread throughout our galaxy in a matter of months."

Farragut brushed off Percival's explanation without so much as a second moment of consideration, "The imperative word being "may". Need I remind you that this ship contains some of the most cutting-edge Systems Alliance technology and conducts numerous experiments and projects of vital import? If we destroy the ship the Systems Alliance will lose years if not decades of research! We'd be vulnerable to all sorts of extraterrestrial threats" he yelled frantically at him.

Percival snapped his teeth shut and clenched his jaws tightly, causing the masseter muscles in his face to ripple—the closest I ever saw him get to being truly, truly angry. Barthilus twitched his mandibles in irritation and moved to address his commanding officer.

"Captain, with all due respect, the Spectre is right. We need to destroy this ship. Look how fast the situation has deteriorated since these things first appeared. If they find a way off the ship it could put the lives of millions—if not billions—in danger" Barthilus pleaded with the obstinate Captain.

Captain Murgen and the rest of the Jaegers stared at Farragut with a look that was just absolutely hemorrhaging more and more respect as the conversation went on. Although both Captain Murgen and Farragut both technically held the same rank within the Systems Alliance Navy, I knew that Murgen thought along the same lines as Percival, and had most likely already chosen to defer to the expertise of the Council Spectre. He narrowed his eyes dangerously at the wide-eyed, frantic visage of his fellow Captain.

Rake took off his helmet, scratched his head and sighed. "We don't have the firepower or the manpower to both guard the survivors on the Bridge and to simultaneously target both objectives, so chances are we're going to take a small team that will hit the engine room, then the biology wing?" he half-asked me.

"We'll probably also need to take two technicians, one to recouple the drive core and one to act as back-up, and at least one scientist for the contaminant, which will probably be Dr. Jaelen Veers" Soph gestured at the salarian biology scientist currently standing a few meters behind Farragut. I had met him and the asari, Dr. Rentea T'lana, all the way back at Containment Airlock One, right after the start of the outbreak. They had both survived, having successfully made their way with Percival and a group of other survivors to our location.

"After that," Jay continued, "We'll probably take five or six shooters and leave the rest of them here to guard the survivors. We fix up the engine, the contaminant, the surviving bridge crew here will set the self-destruct and everyone will make their way to one of the hangars, where the SSV Excalibur will hopefully pick us up or we hitch a ride on one of the shuttles, easy peasy"

I sighed and scratched my head. If only it was that simple. Firstly we didn't know the extent of the hostile presence at either of those two locations. It could potentially be a lot more than a small fireteam were equipped to handle, especially if we had to escort civilian specialists. Secondly, we had no idea how many surviving saboteurs they were, or what their current objective was. I assumed that they had been responsible for releasing the contaminant, although for what reason I could not guess.

Lastly, there was this feeling I had deep down that we were somehow missing something, something important, something that we had failed to consider. I racked my brain, trying to figure out what we could have missed, what we could have overlooked, but came up empty-handed. I sighed, hoping that it would hit me sooner or later. Even before I'd been made a Council Spectre I had learned to listen to my feelings. They had saved me more than once.

Farragut started up again, seeing the sudden silence of his opposition as a sign of his inevitable victory. "As the ranking Alliance officer, I order you to go call your ship for reinf—"

I was jolted from my thoughts as Farragut's words were abruptly cut off. My hand flew to my Predator and my amp sparked on as my eyes saw Farragut suddenly slump onto the holo-table and immediately began scanning the room for any sign of a cloaked saboteur who might have decided to target the Systems Alliance officer.

My brow furrowed in confusion as I saw that no one else looked remotely concerned, Percival had a bemused expression on his face while Cade chortled loudly beside me. Standing behind the unconscious form of Captain Farragut was Dr. Jaelen Veers. In his hand he had a large, hypodermic needle while his other had a finger to the carotid artery of the unconscious Captain.

"Pardon me, scans indicated Captain Farragut exhibited a worryingly elevated heart rate and abnormally high blood pressure, decided to administer propofol to help—ahem—calm the Captain down. Doctor's orders, will try to make sure that he is given a proper prescription regimen once he wakes up." Dr. Veers smiled.

Cade's chortling died down to the turian equivalent of snickering and he and I quickly shared a glance. Dr. Jaelen Veers was now our boy.

"Please, don't mind me, will ensure that the Captain is resting comfortably. Continue on." Jaelen bowed politely to the rest of the war council. With a grunt he and Dr. T'lana each hooked an arm under the unconscious Captain Farragut and dragged him away, depositing him unceremoniously into a nearby chair. Cade wiped a tear from his eye and Camilla muttered an angry "serves him right" beneath her breath. The marines beside me were wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the gross misconduct that they had just bore witness to.

"I think I like that guy" both Jay and Fly said simultaneously.

"Anyways," Percival started to say, "I propose we send a team of civilian specialists to first recouple the drive core and then address the issue in the biology labs, escorted by a team of shooters—"

Dr. Jaelen Veers dropped Captain Farragut unceremoniously onto the deck and quickly shot his hand into the air. "Permission to be the biology lab specialist?" he piped up.

Percival turned to look appraisingly at the grey-skinned salarian. "Permission granted" he said. To be fair, of the fifty or so individuals still on the Bridge, he was the only scientist from the Biology Research Division still standing.

Camilla rose from the seat beside Cade. "I want to go as well, you're not going to find a better drive core technician on this ship" she said resolutely. Cade opened his mouth, looking like he was about to protest, but a furious glare from Camilla shut my friend down before he could voice a single word of complaint.

Percival nodded to her as well. "Cloud, Cade and I will lead Gunnery Sergeant Hinzo and his team, as well as Sergeant Mardinus and his men"

I stepped off from the console I had been leaning against and interrupted my friend. "Percival, I think that between you, Cade and I we can more than adequately protect the civilians. We should leave Rake's team and Sergeant Mardinus here to protect the survivors."

Percival shook his head. "Negative, we don't know how many saboteurs or these creatures stand between us and our two objectives. Also, I want to leave behind a team at the drive core, just in case the saboteurs double back and try to undo our work."

Captain Murgen raised an eyebrow and gestured at the Alliance Jaegers at his back. "Then take Second Lieutenant Burton and Gunnery Chief Teewin as well, two of my best, that way both the drive core defenders and the biology team will have a biotic specialist attached to them. Half my Jaegers are packing omega-enkaphalin rounds anyways, in case any biotic saboteurs decide to try their luck here". Accer and the massive Alliance Jaeger with the M-76 Revenant strapped to his back saluted smartly and moved to form up beside the Captain.

This seemed to be sufficient to Percival, who gave his consent without a word of debate. I nodded as well, giving my assent, although in my opinion it left the Bridge survivors rather devoid of specialized support. The asari medical specialist, Dr. Rentea T'lana, also voiced her immutable decision to accompany Dr. Jaelen Veers and quickly found herself on the team as well. That would mean that the group currently numbered at around 20, which was much too large in my opinion. Although the extra numbers might help in the large, almost cavernous engine room, that many people would only gum up the corridors and increase the incidence of friendly fire.

Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus strode up and saluted Percival. Beside him, almost cowering in the shadow of the larger turian, slouched a young, dark-grey turian with bright, green eyes and simple red clan markings. Like the two doctors, they had also survived the events at Containment Airlock One that had wiped out the rest of their security team. Their armor was battered and scarred and a large gash ran across the chest-plate of the veteran turian sergeant, testimony to the desperate fight for survival that the two had endured on the journey here.

"Spectre Percival, if I may, I would suggest leaving the rest of my men here to guard the survivors. Too many shooters will only increase the chance of friendly fire and decrease our maneuverability in the cramped corridors of the ship. Private Galen Verus and I request that we be the only ones to accompany you, the rest of the ships surviving security personnel should stay here under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus." Mardinus respectfully suggested.

I silently agreed with the turian sergeant's opinion, although it seemed that Percival did too because he agreed to the sergeant's suggestion without voicing any dissent. The turian sergeant nodded and walked over to where the marines and I were standing. The young turian trailed behind him, eyes downcast and swallowing nervously. Strangely, although Mardinus nodded to me with what amounted to respect, his eyes seemed to narrow at the sight of Cade. I looked over at my friend and saw that he was deliberately avoiding the hostile gaze of the veteran sergeant, his eyes glued onto Percival still standing at the holo table at the center of the room.

"Sergeant Mardinus, good to know you're still alive" I greeted him.

The sergeant's bent mandible flapped meekly as he grinned back at me. "Been a hell of a day, Spectre, have to say I'm looking forward to spending all that hazard pay."

"Can't argue with that" I chuckled.

Rake meandered over and punched the turian sergeant's shoulder in a friendly show of camaraderie. "Sergeant Mardinus saved our asses at least a dozen times on our way to the bridge" he piped up. "He's a damn good marine"

Sergeant Mardinus shrugged as if to say that it was no big deal, then gestured to the turian rookie standing beside him. "This here is Private Galen Verus, you also met him back at Containment Airlock One but I don't think you two were properly introduced".

The private looked up meekly and found himself caught in my appraising gaze. My icy-blue stare battered down his light green one. After a few seconds he shuffled nervously and coughed before looking away. He seemed a bit wet behind the ears, but if he'd made it this far it then it couldn't have been all thanks to luck.

"You okay, kid?" I asked him. To his credit he managed to maintain eye contact, even if he looked like he was about to piss himself.

He nodded. "Yes, sir" he responded nervously.

Mardinus clapped a heavy hand on the young turian's armored shoulder, causing Private Verus to buckle slightly at the knees and cry out in surprise. "It's the kid's first tour as a naval marine, green as grass but I think he's got some promise. Saved our asses more than once on the way here, and it was him who found the maintenance technicians hiding in that lounge", Mardinus vouched for the young marine.

"T-t-thank y-you, sir" he replied shakily. He broke eye contact with me and began worrying at a dent on his armored forearm. All turians started mandatory basic training at the age of 15 and it lasted roughly half a galactic year. From what Cade told me, after basic training all turians were given another six months of specialized vocational training depending on their military occupational specialty, so if this was roughly eight months into young turian's first tour he couldn't have been older than 18. I shared a knowing smile with the turian sergeant and he winked at me in return. Mardinus then turned to Cade, who still sat beside me but had spent the entire exchange uncharacteristically silent and quietly fixated on the ground beneath his feet.

"Spectre Kitiarian. Pleasure to finally meet you in person" the sergeant said icily.

Cade rose to his feet and uncoiled himself to his full height. Standing at about six feet two, which was about the same as me, Cade was tall compared to many humans and even to most turians, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus included. But unfortunately for my silver-plated friend, the grizzled turian sergeant was almost a foot taller and considerably bulkier than him. Cade came up to roughly the turian's collarbone but the mass difference only accentuated the dichotomy between the two turians now glaring coldly at each other.

"Good to have you on board as well, sergeant. My fellow Spectre spoke highly of you, he commented favorably on your dedication to duty." Cade responded professionally.

Mardinus nodded. "I merely follow the orders of my commanding officers, like any good soldier would. I served with your sister, she was a credit to the Turian Hierarchy, I was sorry to hear of her passing. She was a true turian" he said in an almost imperceptibly mocking tone. Even I couldn't miss the subtle insinuation that Cade somehow fell short as a proper turian. My friend's face darkened and Camilla and the marines were taken back by the turian sergeant's inflammatory words.

It didn't seem as if Cade was rising to the bait, "Thank you for your kind words, sergeant, my sister did the Blackwatch proud. The Hierarchy was made weaker for her loss." He responded perfunctorily in a clipped, measured tone. Both turians glared at each other ruthlessly, their subvocals quietly engaging in a silent argument that we humans couldn't hope to follow. Cade's hands were balled into tight fists while Mardinus had his claws clasped bone-tight behind his armored back, both were standing with board-like stiffness with their heads tilted in a fraction of an angle upwards and their mandibles slightly splayed in what I recognized to be species-specific subconscious displays of dominance.

"Indeed" the turian sergeant finally assented, "Now if you will excuse me, Spectres, there are a few things I must relay to my men before I leave them in the care of Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus. Die for the cause, Cade."

"Die for the cause" my friend responded.

Mardinus then turned back to look at me, warmth and friendliness returning to his stony, grey eyes. "Keep an eye on Galen here for me, will you?"

I nodded and he saluted smartly, turning on his heels and heading over to where the remainder of the ship's surviving security personnel currently licked their wounds.

Private Galen glanced up nervously at my friend Cade, who seemed to be lost in thought at the turian sergeant's words. Beside him Camilla looked both concerned and confused at the loss of my friend's usually vibrant and upbeat demeanor. Understandable, given that she didn't know much about my friend's history or the background that he came from.

"Excuse me, did the sergeant say that your name was Cade?" he asked hesitatingly.

The younger turian's question seemed to snap Cade out of his trance. He shook his head to clear his mind and then turned to regard the rookie.

"Huh? Yeah, Cade with a C" he answered.

"Cade, as in Cade Kitiarian, hero of the Palaven Rebellions? You killed that secessionist Blackwatch commander and saved the Primarch's life?" Galen gushed.

"Yeah, that's me" he nodded grimly. Cade tensed up, causing his inky black neck tattoo to strain against the collar of his armor. Camilla, sensing that this was apparently an emotional subject for my friend, stood up and slid a hand around my friend's arm, refraining from engaging in the usual back-and-forth pattern of mindless bickering that they had quickly fallen into. I quickly placed a hand on Galen's shoulder and gently steered him away.

"Hey private, I know you don't know better, but I wouldn't bring up the Palaven Rebellions around Cade. It wasn't a good time for him." I whispered confidentially.

Galen's green eyes widened and his mandibles flapped seemingly with embarrassment. "I-I'm so sorry, I didn't know—"

"It's okay, we didn't expect you to, and I know Cade won't hold it against you. He lost his sister and his father during the Rebellion, so it's always been a touchy subject" I explained.

The young private looked at me apologetically, "I'm sorry, I should have realized. Every young turian on Palaven grew up reading about the Kitiarians in the history books, they've basically led the Blackwatch since the Krogan Rebellions. I should have known better."

I gently placed a hand on the young Private's shoulders. "Don't blame yourself," I told him. "Like you I only read what the Turian Hierarchy published after the Rebellion ended. It was years before Cade trusted me enough to tell me what happened."

"Still, it shouldn't have happened. Do you mind telling him that I'm sorry?" he asked earnestly.

"Sure, no problem kid" I promised him.

"Thank you, and Spectre Cloud?"

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say that it is an honor to serve alongside you, Kitiarian and Percival. The three of you are practically legends to the younger turian recruits. They show us boarding footage you recorded during your anti-slaver exploits in the Terminus Systems, and our SERE training was based on your mission to Invictus." He gushed. The young turians taloned hands flew up to rub the not yet developed scalloped plates that covered the back of his neck in embarrassment.

I smiled. "The honor is mine. Stay safe out there"

"Will do, sir"

With one last nod, Private Galen Verus moved to join his sergeant and the rest of the surviving security personnel of the SSV Hippocrates. The rag-tag bunch barely formed a half platoon —less than two-score ragged, shell-shocked survivors among what had originally been a full company 120 marines strong. Of the survivors, only Sergeant Mardinus and the young private seemed the least bit combat effective. The rest had tell-tale, thousand-yard stares, nursed bloody appendages or sat silently as they awaited orders. I had no doubt that they would give their lives to defend the bridge should the need arise, but Sergeant Gradinus had been right. If we had taken them with us they would have been massacred.

I realized then that as much as Cade, Percival and I had endured throughout the last few hours, it had been ten times worse for the ship's crew. Our elite fighting skills aside, we hadn't been forced to watch our friends mutate horribly into homicidal abominations, forced to kill them or be killed. We hadn't had to watch the people we had known for months—even years—slowly die one by one, horribly and in pain, only to rise up as mechanical savages hell-bent on perpetuating the grisly cycle of rebirth.

That was why Camilla had snapped so savagely at the Captain earlier when she had discovered that he had kept survivors out of the safe haven that the Bridge provided, why Dr. Veers had so willingly incapacitated the Captain. They had seen too much, and they were on the brink. I silently vowed to do my best to ensure that as many people survived as possible. My hand went to my belt where a certain photo was stored safely in a utility pouch. Everyone that died on this ship wouldn't be forgotten. I'd honor them somehow.

Percival walked over and discreetly gestured to Cade and I. We moved off to the side and huddled up, out of earshot of the rest of the survivors.

"We move out in twenty. How's your ammunition doing" Percival inquired.

Cade gestured at the large, black rifle that hung on his back. "I'm out of rounds for Meera. Vindicator's got maybe half an ammunition block left but I should be able to scrounge a spare one from one of the Jaegers. My Carnifex is fine and I've still got almost a full loadout of Arc and Homing Grenades" he reported.

I spoke up next. "Snakebite's dry, and I doubt that the Alliance Jaegers are carrying spare sniper-compatible ammunition blocks anyways —at least, I don't see any of them with snipers. I've got a spare block for my Predator, and three sticky grenades left. Amp is green and ready to go."

Percival nodded at the both of us. "Alright, I borrowed spare ammunition blocks for both my Katana and my Lancer and I've still got a few inferno grenades. I haven't had to fire my Phalanx yet so its ammunition block should almost be at full capacity. Cloud, I want you to talk to the Jaegers, see if one of them is willing to part with one of their Vindicators. The marines and the two turians all have automatic rifles but the engine room is pretty large so I want at least the both of you with some semblance of long-range capabilities" he said thoughtfully.

"Roger that, boss" Cade saluted.

I silently nodded and gave Percival a light punch on the arm. His blue eyes suddenly went dead serious as he continued.

"We've got three civilian specialists coming with us. I know the engineer can fight, and Dr. Veers and T'lana both demonstrated themselves to be somewhat capable on our way to the bridge, but we're still their best shot at survival. That means we'll be the first to engage each and every hostile. The marines and the Jaegers can focus on guarding the specialists." Percival ordered the pair of us.

Cade's eyes glinted mischievously. "Camilla can most definitely fight, among other things" he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes at my friend and threw Percival another nod of assurance. "Wouldn't have it any other way" I said confidently.

Percival's serious demeanor suddenly shifted, he shot us a broad smile and clapped us both on the shoulder. Before we could protest he pulled the both of us in a massive hug, causing Cade and I to groan in annoyance and the rest of the bridge crew to look at us with confusion. I wasn't exactly a slim guy and Cade was definitely no slouch in the muscle department but the two of us were rendered completely immobile in the arms of the large, blond Spectre. I tried to bring a hand up to rub my jaw as Cade's bony mandible went crashing into it. Cade's scaled forehead rammed hard into Percival's chin, causing the turian to give an exclamation of pain.

"Ow! Let go, slaps" Cade complained.

"That's Sir Lancelot Arthur Percival to you, turian. And don't you god damn forget it." Percival admonished as he brought up a gloved hand to ruffle Cade's fringe.

He let us go after a moment and Cade and I nearly fell to the ground with a sigh of relief, both of us breathing deeply after having spent the last twenty seconds in the bone-crushing embrace of the former Alliance soldier. Camilla peeked out from behind Percival's massive bulk shot and shot Cade an amused, deer-eyed look, mouthing the words "so cute" to the disheveled turian. Cade's mandibles flapped in embarrassment and he looked away, scratching distractedly at a piece of carbon on his chest plate.

The wide, friendly smile on Percival's face slowly disintegrated as the moment passed. The fact that we were on a ship loaded with what had been the former crew, now turned into fearsome, synthetic, killing machines slowly reasserted itself into the forefront of our minds. And did I mention that we also had to deal with saboteurs, limited ammunition, and no way off? Fun.

Dr. Jaelen Veer's suddenly appeared out of nowhere from behind us with Dr. T'lana close behind him, prompting Cade to let out a yelp of surprise.

"Spectres, if you could do me the favor of following me to the briefing room, there's something that I think you should see" the salarian scientist said in a hushed tone. His grey skin looked a few shades paler and his dark eyes were wide. Behind him Dr. T'lana swallowed nervously.

What the fuck now.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2246 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge – Briefing Room 16-A_

 _5 hours and 46 minutes after Outbreak_

It felt like a dozen lifetimes had passed since I had last been in this briefing room. The last time was when we had first came aboard the ship. The heads of the Prometheus research division were briefing us on the state of Earth, the alarming spread of the phenomenon, and the fact that it had somehow jumped the barrier from fauna to intelligent life forms.

In my mind's eye I could still see Doctors Messner, Landry and Singh all pointing out various aspects of the phenomenon as per their research specialties. I could still see Sarah, a serious look on her face, her hands tightly clasped with her husbands as she listened to her fellow researchers wax on about the potential catastrophe that the phenomenon could evolve into.

I sighed and crossed my arms tightly across my chest. Beside me Percival had a grim look on his face, his lips tightly drawn into a thin, tense line. Cade had both hands pressed against the table, his talons carving slight gouges into its metal surface and betraying just how unsettled he currently was.

Lying splayed out on the briefing table was the body of what used to be a human Corpser. Belts went around each limb and were anchored securely to the bottom of the table in the event that it somehow reanimated. His thoracic cage was surgically split and pinned open, as was his cranial vault, leaving its brain and innards open and exposed. Its ribs were half metal, half bone, with thin cabling weaving in and out between them. His skin was grey and rotting, and where large patches of it were missing I could see a metallic carapace underneath it. Its metal eyes were dead and cold and it appeared to have died from a shot to the spinal column, leaving most of its body intact.

Most disturbing of all was its mouth. It was as if someone had ripped it open, removed half of its teeth and replaced them with metal fangs. The skin on its cheeks were ripped and had gaping tears in them. I glanced at the nametag on what was left of its uniform. The tag read D. Vargas and labelled him as a hydroponics technician. Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus cleared his throat and gestured to the corpse.

"Spectres, this was one of the creatures that attacked the bridge earlier. While most of the creatures were either destroyed by your biotic explosion or the Jaegers' grenades, I noticed that this one was relatively physically intact, and asked Dr. Veers and Dr. T'lana if they could maybe perform an autopsy, so that we have a better idea of what we're up against" the turian officer explained. Dr. Jaelen Veers nodded at the turian doctor and moved to stand beside the body.

"Spectres, I want to turn your attention to the creature's innards" he began. In one hand Jaelen held a long, metal stick that looked to be some sort of antenna pulled from one of the consoles and pointed at the creatures guts. The three of us stepped closer inspected the insides more carefully. I recognized what had been the left and right lobes of the creature's lungs. They were shriveled and almost completely deflated, indicating that perhaps the creatures did not require oxygen.

What might have been its stomach looked distended, with a large tear in it from which I presumed the Crawlers had emerged from. The creature's heart was covered in small metal plates that coated it like scales, but otherwise looked to be the proper shape and size. Weird, the state of its lungs indicated that it didn't seem to need oxygen, and yet the heart still seemed relatively intact. I noted the intact ventricles and atria, the intact aorta, and wondered if somehow the creature's heart still beated while it was operational.

After a moment I realized that there was something incredibly wrong with these organs, something that brought a shiver up my spine and caused me to shudder deeply.

"The organs, they're all tinged silver. Just like the asari and human autopsy photos that Dr. Messner and Landry showed us" I said.

Jaelen and Barthilus both shared a quick glance with each other. "You're correct, Spectre. As you know I work within the Biology Research Division here aboard the Hippocrates" Jaelen explained. "Before Doctor Landry was assigned to the Prometheus project, he was actually the head of the Biology Research Division."

"We worked closely, even after he was transferred to Project Prometheus" Jaelen continued. "He showed me the cadaver reports and the autopsy photos some time ago, asked me for my professional opinion on the manner of the phenomenon founds on Earth and Thessia. On a hunch, I opened up one of these creatures and found that their internal organs exhibited the same kind of silver tinge that the bodies in those photos exhibited"

Percival cursed and Cade ground his teeth and both of them immediately took a step back from the body. I held my ground and turned to the salarian doctor. "Could there be a chance that these creatures could reappear on Thessia or Earth, even after we've destroyed the ship? Could there be a link between the phenomenon on Earth and these creatures?" I asked.

"That was Dr. Veers first concern, but we're not 100% sure yet" Barthilus assured me.

"Yes, silver tinge in both the autopsy reports and this creature are likely related, although whether or not they are both symptoms of the same process that transformed this poor crewmember into this creature is still unknown, although it feels prudent to point out that none of these things have been popping up on any of the major planets where the phenomenon has manifested" Dr. Veers spoke with rapid precision.

Dr. Rentea T'lana spoke up for the first time since we had entered the briefing room. "We don't know exactly what causes them to transform into these creatures just yet, we just know that the internal similarities between these creatures and the autopsy photos can't be mere coincidence. It's possible that the silver tinge in both these creatures and the cadavers are completely unrelated to either the phenomenon or the infection process. Either way, there's still too much that we don't know, and we mean to find out." she said airily.

Jaelen nodded excitedly. "Exactly, which is why I request that after we stop the contaminant down in the Biology labs that we take a moment to use the equipment located there to run a quick sequencing analysis of this creature's DNA. There is a 2308 Illumina Technologies DNA Sequencer in one of the labs, it is state-of-the-art, capable of running a full, accurate genome sequence in minutes. If we—"

Cade finally decided to speak up, cutting off the enthusiastic salarian before he could say another word. "I concede that this is definitely related to the phenomenon, but why would we run a DNA scan for what seems to be the work of a pathologic organism or an infection of sort?"

"Because we need to establish what might explain the physical and physiological differences between these creatures and the cadavers from the autopsy report, and also the Reaper soldiers created during the Reaper War" I explained to him.

Jaelen almost bounced with excitement, nodding appreciatively towards me. "Ah, that is exactly right! Observe the metal teeth, the synthetic cabling, and the metal spines and claws that this creature possesses! They appear too rapidly, too suddenly, too soon after the alleged moment of infection."

He waved his omni-tool towards one of the deactivated displays behind him. It flickered on and several images appeared. I recognized them as pictures of the various Reaper soldier subtypes. I could see Marauders, Brutes, Banshees, Cannibals, Husks, even Ravagers.

"Back during the Reaper War, recovered footage of actual Reaper Husking procedures done on captured civilians and military personnel demonstrated that the process took on average almost 27 minutes to complete." Jaelen started. He flipped to another image, this one of three dead Marauders lying side by side, all of them virtually identical.

"Even then most victims simply had their physical features reverted to synthetic ones, and even if they created new appendages or features they were all uniform within the subspecies created —no diversity whatsoever, no trace of the individual used to create them, every Reaper troop virtually indistinguishable from each other. Turians were turned into Marauders, humans into husks, batarians into Cannibals, but look at the creatures we've encountered thus far."

Another smattering of images came up, all of them I recognized to have been taken from aboard the ship. They were all images of relatively intact Corpsers.

"Some of them have metal plates, some claws longer than others, metal spines of different sizes and shapes, some with cabling and some without, and once again, most importantly the difference in reproduction."

My head reeled as I tried to assimilate everything the doctor was telling me. So many words, so typically salarian. Basically he was saying that this infection was too dissimilar to the process that the Reapers used, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it to better understand the phenomenon, now that there was evidence that the infection and the phenomenon may be linked.

He gestured to the asari doctor. She brought up one of the holo-screens and pressed a button on her omni-tool. Immediately a video started playing, it was a video of the first infection that we had witnessed of a security officer back when we first encountered the creatures at Containment Airlock One, the infection that I had recorded on my omni-tool for intelligence purposes. Evidently so had Jaelen.

We watched as the Corpser climbed on top of the unfortunate marine and the Crawlers entered his mouth. I watched again as he died, only to reanimate a few moments later, metal spines erupting furiously from his back, jagged metal claws tearing their way out of his arms and his eyes snapping open to emit an angry red light.

Dr. T'lana shut off the video. Both Percival and Cade looked queasy at the footage, neither of them having been there when it had occurred.

"We need more information on this infection and whether or not it ties back to the phenomenon. With the loss of the Project data at the Data Archives, this might be the only clue we have as to what we're dealing with, might be all that that crew died for" Jaelen begged. "We need more information in case these things spread. I implore you to let me run a full DNA analysis on these specimens once we get to the Biology lab"

Jaelen held out his hand and Dr. T'lana came for with a secured medical container. She unclipped the top, unsealing it. Inside were a number of specimen containers ranging in a variety of different sizes. The largest one held what I saw to be an intact Crawler specimen while the smallest contained bits of unrecognizable lumps likely taken from the post-mortem biopsy. Several test tubes filled with blood and the odd, blue fluid that the seemed to ooze from the creatures were also placed on a rack mounted on the side of the container.

Percival cleared his throat and "Have no worries, Doctor Veers. We agree with your assessment and concur that one of our main priorities should be to recover as much useable information as possible to bring back to the Council. I'm sure my colleagues have been recording as much footage as possible regarding the reproductive and combat methods that these creatures employ."

Cade and I both nodded. "I've recorded multiple infection processes, not only from the Crawlers but also from the larger ones, the ones we call Changers" I added helpfully. "We intend to bring back as much tactical data as possible, just in case these things start appearing on Thessia or Earth. Also with regards to the Project data, it isn't destroyed, but rather currently in the hands of the saboteurs. If the opportunity presents itself we're going to try and get it back."

Jaelen and Rentea both looked at each other and then back to us, nodding gratefully. The asari rubbed the salarian's shoulders reassuringly and shot us another look of thanks. Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus eyes darted back and forth between the two doctors and the three of us. The stalwart turian naval officer was somewhat out of his depth when it came to the realm of science, but he had been smart enough to recognize that an opportunity to learn about our foe had presented itself to us and had taken the initiative to ensure that we had a chance to do so.

"That is all, Spectres. I just wanted to share the good doctor's findings with you before you set out to achieve our objectives. Have no fear, the survivors will be in good hands while you are gone" Barthilus promised.

Cade gave the turian officer a respectful salute, prompting Barthilus to rub his fringe in embarrassment. "You're a credit to the Turian Hierarchy, Lieutenant-Commander Syriah Barthilus. I sincerely wish that you were the officer-in-charge rather than Captain Farragut—spirits damn him". Cade held out a hand, which Barthilus grabbed and shook firmly.

"Thank you, never thought I'd get to be praised by, much less shake hands, with Cade Kitiarian himself" Barthilus chuckled.

"The honor is most definitely all mine" Cade responded simply.

Barthilus rubbed the back of his fringe again in embarrassment. "Listen, about the Captain…" he started awkwardly, "He's under a lot of pressure. I've served with him the last three years and as much of an ass he can be, he's generally competent at his job—no worse than some of the other officers I served under back when I was with the 21st Marine Division. We've never experienced anything like this before, I don't wholly blame him for the way that he is reacting."

Leave it to the turian to attempt to defend an officer that most soldiers from any other military in the galaxy would have fragged. That unflinching loyalty to their duty and their commitment to following military protocol was what made the turians the most effective military force in the galaxy, perhaps with the exception of the Alliance Jaegers.

Most turian soldiers followed the orders of their commanding officers like it was the word of God. Disobedience and dereliction of duty were almost unheard of. In contrast, I'd heard of Krogan officers in the Federation literally being torn limb from limb by their soldiers for what were viewed as cowardly or inept orders.

It was a shame to see such dedication and loyalty wasted on a piece of trash like Farragut. Granted, the turian military had its share of incompetent officers, but usually they would be quickly identified and removed of their position before they could do any actual harm and cost the lives of good men.

I recalled an assassination mission I had participated in a few years back that involved killing an incompetent turian general in charge of a pacification operation on a planet besieged by raiders. He had been a bad general, but his troops were too loyal, too deeply committed to the orders of their commanding officer, to go against him.

Eventually the general was found to be in the process of committing a grave error that would have likely cost the lives of an entire Legion of hierarchy soldiers. I had been sent in. I staged the assassination to look like it had been perpetrated by a raider terrorist cell, then had ensured that the next officer in the line of command was a level-headed, competent Captain much admired by his men. I had not only given the Legion an excellent commanding officer, I had also given them a martyr to rally behind. The Captain ended up crushing the raiders, thousands of turian lives were saved, and I removed a liability to the Turian Hierarchy, all with one bullet.

I clapped Barthilus on the shoulder, conveying my gratitude towards his competency and reliability with a quick look. "Keep them safe, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus"

The brown-plated turian met my gaze and nodded resolutely.

"Of course, sir. Die for the cause" he promised.


	9. Chapter 9 - Sometimes More is Better

**Chapter 9 – Sometimes More is Better**

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2312 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge_

 _6 hours and 12 minutes after Outbreak_

"Val, we're making our towards the engine room now. We need to recouple the Drive Core and deal with some kind of issue in one of the Biology labs before we can arrange for an evac" Percival said into his comms. set.

" _Roger that Spectre, you guys need anything? I still have two teams of Jaeger's standing by, they're feeling a bit restless, sir"_ replied Val.

"Negative Flight Lieutenant, keep them on standby in case we need a quick reaction force. Maintain a patrol path around the SSV Hippocrates and let us know if the sensor's pick up any craft on an approach vector. We have reason to believe that the saboteurs might be looking for a way off this ship and they're carrying sensitive data that we're looking to get back. How's the status of the Excalibur?"

" _Copy. SSV Excalibur is green, we vented our emission sinks and re-stealthed after we dropped off the first batch of Jaegers. Engineering, comms and weapons are reading in the green. How's Operative Cloud? He still in one piece?"_ Val asked candidly over the open channel.

If I was capable of blushing, maybe I would have. Camilla grinned and playfully punched my shoulder while Cade had what looked to be a look of feigned hurt plastered over his face.

Percival looked over at me and smiled, "He's fine Val, still pretty. Would you like an update on Operative Kitiarian's status as well?"

" _I'm good, sir. SSV Excalibur signing off, holler if you need anything"_ she finished.

"Wow, what did I ever do to her?" Cade shook his head sadly.

Percival shot him a look of absolute incredulity, "You seriously don't remember?"

"No" Cade shot back.

"First day aboard the ship, you took her hairbrush and used it to clean your armor. She almost knifed you in your sleep. I had to literally shield you from her." Percival began to list off.

"In my defense turians don't have hair. I had no idea what she else she might have used that brush for" Cade said apologetically. That was a good point, I thought.

"And the best part is, you didn't even wake up, not until she started screaming at you"

"I trusted you to watch my back" Cade shrugged.

Percival brushed Cade aside and relentlessly continued down his list. "Next, you tried to shoot and kill her pet hamster"

"turians and most of the galaxy at large kill rodents and pests, humans are quite literally the only species I know of that keep them as pets" Cade argued. That was a very, very good point.

Percival wrapped a big, armored arm around the slimmer turians shoulders and pulled him in close. "And finally," he began "you hit on her and all her female friends aboard the ship in what would have most definitely been a breach of fraternization regulations had you been in the Systems Alliance military" he finished dramatically.

Cade's eyes glinted mischievously, "ah, but I am not Systems Alliance military, am I?" he said.

Both Percival and Cade started laughing raucously. Camilla blew a strand of hair out of her face and rolled her eyes at the shameless turian.

"At the risk of sounding absolutely cliché, it sure sounds like you know how to treat a woman" she sighed.

"Green isn't your color, Camilla" I said wryly, prompting both Percival and Cade laughed even louder. They both wiped tears off of their faces then proceeded to poke fun at Camilla, questioning her suspicious indignation at having discovered Cade's propensity for wooing human females.

I ignored them and continued calibrating the borrowed N7 Valkyrie Battle Rifle I had borrowed from one of the Alliance Jaegers. With a set of finely-crafted screwdrivers and tools I kept in one of the utility pouches attached to my belt, I made small micro-adjustments to the inner mechanisms of the appropriated weapon.

Unlike Cade's M-15 Vindicator, the N7 Valkyrie fired in two, rather than three, round bursts. Satisfied that the inner mechanisms were all in working order, I began calibrating the sights on the weapon. The original owner, a grim, dour-faced corporal, had already added a silencer and a disrupter-round ammunition block. Although it lacked a specialized scope, it had an optional holographic sight that could be used for targets of moderate distance. It wasn't my M-15 Vindicator, but it would have to do for now.

Satisfied, I reassembled the weapon and powered it on, causing it to unfold with a whine into my hands. The dual-barrel build of the Valkyrie gave it a faster firing rate than the M-15 Vindicator, although the clip held only 16 bullets compared to the Vindicators 24.

Seeing that I was finished, both Percival and Cade ceased their teasing and immediately began sobering up. Cade double-checked the Tactical Cloak on his armor, flickering in and out of existence while making experimental movements while stealthed. His Infiltrator suit was no longer pristine as it had been when we had first boarded the ship—gouges, pockmarks, and plasma scarring where Camilla had almost fried him with her shotgun all marred the shell of his armor.

Percival booted up his omni-tool and activated his tech armor. Bright red armor seemingly made from light sprang up to hover mere centimeters above the big marine's chest, shoulders, forearms and legs. His N7 armor suit was likewise as dented and battered as mine and Cade's were. The menacing red tech armor artfully matched the single red stripe running down his red arm that identified him as one of the Systems Alliance's best and brightest. He powered on his Lancer and inspected his remaining Inferno Grenades before nodding to me.

Like Cade I also ran a check on my stealth systems, ensuring that the coverage was impenetrable and in fine working order. Unlike my two fellow Spectres, my armor was sleeker and much less bulkier than the sets that they had chosen to wear. I lacked armor plates on both my upper arms and my rear thighs and the armor plates I did have weren't all that thick, even compared to Percival's N7 set. I liked to rely more on my strong kinetic shields and my biotic barriers for protection. The armor was mostly there to prevent me from getting bruises or scratches, and to make myself look damn cool.

Camilla checked her Plasma shotgun, armor and omni-tool as well, flashing us a thumbs-up once she was satisfied that it was all in working order.

Finished, we all marched over to meet up with the rest of the team. Accer nodded in greeting, while the large Alliance Jaeger, Gunnery Chief Sean Teewin, saluted Percival.

Rake and his men stood beside them, Lancers held across their chests and eyes glued on me. Our two turian marines, Mardinus and Verus, both stood rigidly at attention a few feet away from them. Dr. Jaelen Veers and Dr. Rentea T'lana had both appropriated a pair of kinetic shield generators from fallen bridge officers. Both were clad in nothing more than their science uniforms. I sighed, those shield generators might stop a stray bullet or two, but would by absolutely useless against the close quarters capabilities of the Corpsers. I could only hope that the asari medical officer was proficient in the use of barriers.

"Alright everyone" Percival began. "Before we proceed with the mission, there is one thing that I want to make absolutely clear. Out there, you do exactly what we say, when we say it. There's no room for doubt or hesitation, there is no margin for error. I don't want any of you to die and I will do my best to guarantee all your safeties, but in order for me to do that I need you to place your trust in me, I need you to trust that my orders are in your best interests. Can you do that? Are we in agreement?" he questioned the group.

"We're with you all the way, Spectre" Jaelen responded cheerfully.

Percival nodded. "Good, thank you. Assignments are as follows" he continued.

"Gunnery Chief Rakiharu Kinzo, Specialist Sophia Croft, Corporal Jaypaul Gaffke and Corpsman Vonderrius Flyssander will form the rear guard" Percival ordered. The four marines saluted sharply at the Spectre. "Dr. Veers, T'lana and Camilla will be in the center of the group, about a meter ahead of them"

The three civilian specialists nodded soberly at Percival. As much as they might want to fight, this mission would be over if any of them were to be killed before we got to the engine room. I was especially concerned about Dr. Veers. As much as I liked Camilla, if push came to shove we could probably figure out how to recouple the Drive Core ourselves. Jaelen's scientific knowledge concerning these creatures, however, was much more invaluable to us in the long run.

"Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton and Gunnery Chief Sean Teewin will have the right flank, Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus and Private Galen Verus will take the left, and us Spectre's will take point. Cover your designated firing lanes and trust your comrades to have your back. I'll call for specialized fire support and targets as the need arises" Percival finally finished.

I was glad to have the marine at my side. Unlike Cade and I, Percival had almost half a decade of experience commanding men. While all three of us could direct and lead squad and fireteam-level operations with extreme proficiency, only Percival had any experience commanding anything more than that. He had been thrust into the Slaver Fringe Wars as a freshly-minted Second Lieutenant right out of the Systems Alliance Officer Candidate School. He had made Lieutenant-Commander within two years after being decorated with commendations after the Battle of Bahak and had then been accepted into the prestigious N7 Program. He served with further distinction for another three years before being asked by the human councilor to be Humanity's 6th human Spectre.

Percival then turned to the surviving crew on the Bridge "Command of the survivors falls on Lieutenant-Commander Syriah Barthilus while were away, with command of overall defense falling to Captain Elias Murgen" he further ordered. The two officers nodded and saluted.

"We'll keep them safe" Barthilus promised.

Although Captain Murgen technically outranked Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus, the turian bridge officer was much better known to the survivors and the crew and had thus far demonstrated a considerable talent for diplomacy and level-headed thinking in the face of a crisis. Both Percival and I had realized this and had decided to give Barthilus overall command in light of these characteristics, something that Murgen had cheerfully agreed to. The Alliance Jaeger was more than happy to leave the care of the survivors in hands far more capable than his own, preferring to stick to commanding his marines and the ragtag survivors of the ship's security personnel.

"What about Captain Farragut?" Camilla asked.

"Had to give him a second dose, should come to in about a half hour" Jaelen winked conspiratorially. Cade laughed but both Percival and I exchanged a worried look. Needless to say, when Farragut came about and found that he had been relieved of command, chances are he wouldn't take that sitting down.

"Don't take shit from him, Lieutenant-Commander. Consider that an order" I told Barthilus.

"Far be it from me to disobey a Spectre" he chuckled.

I smiled and gave Murgen a knowing look. He nodded back at me and I suddenly felt much better about the situation. I could trust Murgen to handle a shitty bridge officer if Barthilus wasn't up to the task. I really didn't want to come back and find a bunch of survivors dead just because Farragut decided to throw his weight around.

Percival made a hand gesture and immediately two of the Alliance Jaegers moved to deactivate the mass effect fields that acted as our make-shift barricade. They turned off with a hum, leaving the area beyond the bridge bathed in darkness.

Immediately the noise on the bridge died down as if a giant hand had suddenly turned a massive dial. I could sense how unsettled the survivors suddenly became – their breathing suddenly became more hard and labored, a few were deathly silent and I could hear more than one survivor whimpering behind me. Camilla swallowed nervously while Cade's fingers began to tap nervously against the trigger of his Vindicator.

I moved up first. With a flick I activated the flashlight attachment on my Valkyrie, the beam of light that it emitted cutting into the darkness beyond and guiding my way. I stepped out past the barriers and looked around, ready and alert. Eventually my eyes began to adjust to the lack of light. I began to make out the details of the hall beyond the bridge, could spot thin strips of emergency lights somewhere further down.

Humans had this wonderful ability to adjust and adapt regardless of the situation. It had ensured our survival over countless millennia as we evolved to become the dominant species on Earth, and it propelled us now into a future where faster-than-light travel, massive superstructures, and a galactic presence was reality rather than science fiction.

In times like these, our fight-or-flight instincts would kick on. Adrenaline would flood our systems, constructing our blood vessels and increasing our blood pressure, expand our airways and dilate our pupils. Fear turned to anger, anger made us brave, made us strong. If there were monsters out there, hiding in the dark, well they were probably hiding from me.

"What are you all waiting for, a goddamn invitation? Move it!" I called out behind me.

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2343 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 9F – Exit B_

 _6 hours and 43 minutes after Outbreak_

I stifled a yawn and shook my head to clear it. Crouched to my right was Cade, flanking the other side of a pair of doors that opened up into the ship's main central passageway. Beyond the door was a cacophony of guttural moans and ghastly howls coming from the twisted throats of what had been the ship's crew. I peeked my head out past the door, making a note of the rough position and mentally counting each hostile.

" _At least 54 of them, plus what looks like a fucking Krogan Changer. That thing is nearly 12 feet tall"_ I whispered to Cade.

" _And that's just within visual range. The main central passageway runs for almost 800 meters, there's bound to be more"_ Cade replied.

For the first time since this whole fiasco had started, both Cade and I were wearing our full-faced helmets. We generally only wore them for missions involving compromised atmospheres where airborne toxins or radiation was involved, although we always kept them with us just in case. Unlike Percival, both of us disliked the way helmets restricted our mobility, narrowed our fields of vision and blocked out certain smells and sounds. As advanced as armor technology was in the 24th century, there was no substitute for the situational awareness that not wearing a helmet provided.

But on the plus side, we could talk in relatively normal volumes without being overheard by homicidal, shambling mechanical zombies. Why we didn't wear our helmets more often I would never know.

Dull, heavy thumps suddenly drew closer and closer to where Cade and I crouched hidden. Immediately the two of us pressed our backs tight into our respective corners, ceasing all chatter and staying completely and utterly still.

The Krogan Changer- the first we had ever seen- walked by. A mass of tentacles sprouted from its left arm, dragging behind it, but otherwise it was visually similar to its Corpser brethren, albeit more armor-plated and much, much larger. Also unlike its smaller brethren, it didn't make a single sound—it didn't moan, didn't howl, didn't so much as make a peep.

It passed within a foot of our hiding spot. Although the both of us were completely still, something made the large Changer pause in place and raise its head rhythmically, almost as if it was sniffing the air. Cade and I tensed up as the hulking behemoth swung its head back and forth, as if it knew something was nearby but couldn't quite see where. Its massive metal and flesh torso shifted and the deck underneath its feet creaked in protest under the weight of the massive creature.

Eventually it moved on, prompting both Cade and I to let out a quiet sigh of relief. Had our tactical cloaks not been active, chances are it would have seen us and proceeded to try and ruin our night.

" _That was a bit too close for comfort"_ Cade radioed to me.

" _You're telling me. That thing must have weighed at least three tons"_ I replied.

" _Think we could have taken it?"_ he asked.

I paused to consider. Chances are we probably would have to fight that thing if we wanted to proceed to the engine room. After we had left the Bridge, we had taken a pedestrian corridor that should have taken us directly to an elevator that would take us up to deck 12. Unfortunately, a pair of doors had been sealed shut and none of us could open it without using heavy explosives that would likely attract every hostile on this ship to our location.

We had backtracked and sealed ourselves up in a medium-sized storage room. We checked the schematics and found that the only way up to the engine room was to make our way into the main central passageway, move down the ship for a few dozen meters, and enter another corridor that led to an elevator that would hopefully be accessible. Percival had asked Cade and I to stealth and scout out the passageway and here we were, meters away from what could possibly be hundreds of those synthetic freaks and hiding like a pair of rabbits.

" _Probably, especially if we had fire support from the marines"_ I answered. " _It's big, but it doesn't look like anything a dozen grenades couldn't solve. But that's only if were just dealing with the Changer. If it had auxiliary support—well, that's a different story."_

" _Agreed. Maybe we can bypass it somehow without pissing it off"_ Cade said hopefully.

I chuckled to myself, " _you're joking, right? You've seen the ship schematics, you know exactly what Percival is going to ask us to do"_ I told the optimistic turian.

Cade sighed through the channel, " _Yeah, sometimes I really, really hate my job"_

I chuckled again, " _shut up, you know you love it"_

Cade moved back a meter away from the door while I stayed in place and kept careful watch. The Krogan Corpser had moved further down the passageway towards the bridge. Although the massive blast door between the passageway and the bridge entryway remained sealed, I had no idea if it would hold against an attack from that behemoth. Speaking of, if that thing managed to get through, there was a snowball's chance in hell that the mass effect barricades that the Jaegers erected would keep that thing out.

" _Percival? It's Cade. Enemy presence is heavy in the main central passageway…"_ Cade reported, _"I recommend finding an alternative route"_ he added hopefully.

Percival's voice came up on both our private channel. " _Negative, Cade. We can't waste any more time. Both of you fall back to our position, we're going to discuss our plan of attack"_

Cade sighed again, " _Roger that, we'll be back in ten"_ he told the N7.

" _Affirmative, Percival out."_

The groan that Cade let out after Percival closed the channel was so loud that for a moment I feared that those creatures had heard it. I looked to back to where my friend was crouched, stealthed. Although I couldn't see him right now, I knew that his face was likely buried in his hands and his eyes were screwed shut.

" _It was worth a shot"_ I told him.

" _Eat shit"_ he simply replied.

I laughed quietly before trying to assuage some of his pain, _"you know, if we don't kill that thing it might end up attacking the bridge, and you know as well as I do that—"_

"— _that the mass-effect barricades won't do a thing against it, I know"_ Cade shot back.

I struggled to keep a straight face as I goaded the pissed-off turian, " _And if it attacks the bridge, not only would it bring its friends and the survivors would likely all die, but we'd—"_

"— _We'd have to probably fight it anyways after we recoupled the drive core, because we need to initiate the self-destruct from the Bridge, I know!"_ Cade vehemently replied, louder this time.

I looked around in alarm, there was a good chance that something had definitely heard him, even though we had our helmets on, " _quiet dude! And if—"_

" _I KNOW"_ Cade screamed at me over our channel. Not that he even needed the channel. This time he had responded so loudly that I could most definitely hear him through his helmet. This time I could also hear the heavy, plodding footsteps of the 3000-pound, synthetic-organic killing machine as it made its way back towards us, likely intent on investigating what had made the noise and stomping us into nonexistence. Totally worth it though.

A huge, deformed head suddenly shoved its way past the door and into the hallway where I was hiding, mere inches from my own head. The krogan had originally possessed a green headplate. Synethetic cables erupted from parts of the plate to dig haphazardly into other parts, large metal teeth cut angry red lines into what was left of its lip, causing them to bleed profusely and giving it an awful slavering appearance. It sniffed loudly, once again trying to pinpoint my location.

" _I should just hit you with this overload, de-cloak you and watch it tear you apart"_ Cade whispered vindictively.

I didn't respond, instead choosing to hold my breath and exercise every ounce of my considerable will to keep every strand of muscle in my body as still as possible. The Changer turned its head my way and stared directly into my faceplate, maybe less than three inches away now. I couldn't help but notice that it didn't fog up my visor, meaning that it probably didn't require oxygen. That confirmed the hypothesis I'd developed upon seeing the lungs on that human Corpser that Jaelen had showed me back at the Bridge. I couldn't wait to share it with him.

" _Look at its teeth! By the spirits, Krogan teeth are supposed to be tiny, almost cute. Those metal fangs are the length of a small child's arms"_ he continued to goad.

Cade was most definitely enjoying himself, enjoying himself a bit too much I should say. No one in their right mind would be making idiotic comments like that when an enormous homicidal abomination was inches away from devouring or disemboweling their best friend. Poor guy, the pressure was probably getting to him. I'd have to take him out to bowling or something, get the guy some downtime, maybe by him a lap dance. If we made it off the ship that is.

" _Sure you'd probably die, and Val would be in tears for days, possibly weeks. But then good old Cade will be there, a strong shoulder for the lovely, grieving flight lieutenant."_

Eventually the Krogan Changer lost interest and withdrew its head from the hallway, departing back down the main central passageway. I let out a heavy sigh of relief as the heavy footsteps faded away. I

" _Unlike you, I usually don't like it when they get that close on a first date"_ I joked.

We both moved back down the hallway and into the pedestrian corridor that led to the storage room the others were hiding in. Once we were satisfied that there were no hostiles in our immediate vicinity, we shut off our tactical cloaks and increased our pace. Leaving our cloaks on tended to drain energy from our suits, resulting in weaker kinetic shields, taxed environmental regulations, and sometimes slight glitches in our omni-tool.

"I don't get you man, 40% of the time you're a surly bastard who can barely string five words together even with a gun held to your head, the other 40% you're pissed off and either killing something or yelling at someone for doing something incredibly stupid, and the other 20% you think you're a spirits-damned comedian." Cade complained to me.

I shrugged, I really didn't know what to say in response to his claim.

"Like that time you pushed that salarian terrorist out the window after he asked us if we knew how far he'd go to have us hunted down" he recalled.

You pushed him out the damn window. Remember what you said afterwards?" Cade asked me. I did.

Cade's voice went suddenly monotone and inflectionless. "At least 15 stories, looks like", Cade said in his best imitation of my voice.

I didn't sound like that.

"Percival nearly wet his pants afterwards." He chuckled.

I smiled at that memory. Sur'kesh was great, a bit wet and humid but it was kind of like Peru back on Earth. Food was terrible though.

"Well pardon me for not being a two-dimensional character" I grunted.

Cade laughed and slapped me on the back. "You crack me up sometimes. Easily in my top 5 favourite human in the galaxy. Don't tell Percival though, he barely made the top 10."

"Thanks buddy"

* * *

 _January 23_ _rd_ _, 2211, 2359 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 9F, Storage Room 12H_

 _6 hours and 59 minutes after Outbreak_

"—At least one Krogan Changer, and perhaps fifty to sixty Corpsers within 80 yards of the passageway entrance with the possibility of more somewhere further down" Cade finished reporting.

I stifled yet another yawn and blinked to clear my eyes. A slight chime coming from my omni-tool caught my attention. I wearily glanced down at it. A bright orange timer indicated that it was now roughly 12:00AM galactic standard time. It was the start of a brand new day.

Percival rubbed his chin and carefully considered Cade's report. The rest of the group stood in a semi-circle behind him. Mardinus and Verus had one shoulder pressed against either side of the entrance to the storage room, keeping careful watch of the corridor beyond. Jaelen tapped one long finger repeatedly against the side of his pantsuit while Rentea wringed her hands anxiously.

Eventually Percival let out a sigh. "We can't handle that many, especially without fortifications or at the very least a viable choke-point where nothing can come at us from the rear. You two are the only ones with tactical cloaks so stealth isn't on the table. That only leaves one viable option."

Rake raised his hand. "Sir, permission for my team to be the diversion" he immediately asked. Beside him Jay and Fly both nodded, shouldering their Lancers.

"Permission denied" Percival instantly responded. Rake and his team looked downcast but otherwise respected the Spectre's decision without complaint.

Percival sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry Gunnery Chief, that was disrespectful of me. I appreciate the gesture but I can't in good conscience let your team be the diversion, I'd be sending you to your deaths. You yourself just took a bad hit from a Chimera a few hours ago and your armor doesn't give you many options if you run into trouble" he said apologetically. "Besides, believe it or not you and your team probably have the most experience with VIP protection out of all of us. We also can't afford to lose Specialist Croft's technical skills"

The marines nodded respectfully, likely amazed that Percival hadn't accepted their offer. Too many alliance officers viewed their men as expendable, were all too willing to trade the lives of their men for their own all in the name of "strategy" and I'm glad that Percival was never one of them. It was sometimes tempting to expend your weakest assets in order to protect your strongest, but in my opinion if you were strong, you had a duty to be the first into the fire.

"We understand, Sir. We won't let you down" Rake promised. "If I may, who do you propose we send instead?"

I stepped forward and hefted my rifle onto my shoulder dramatically. Cade turned and tried his best to get me to see his piteously, pleading look but I refused to meet his eyes. After a few moments he sighed and stepped forwards too, loading a fresh heatsink into his Vindicator and angrily glaring at Percival, who looked sheepishly at the two of us.

"Spectre operatives Cloud and Kitiarian will run interference" he said. Percival took a moment to nod gratefully to us before opening up the ship schematics on his omni-tool and continuing with his explanation. "The rest of us will wait until they've initiated the diversion, then we'll make our way to this pedestrian corridor entrance about 60 meters south of here. We'll take the lift at the end of the hall up to deck twelve and hold up here, in this lounge, while we wait for them to rendezvous with us. Afterwards we'll proceed as a group to the main engine room.

"And how will they get to our location?" Jay asked.

Percival tapped on another point on the schematic, enhancing it for all to see. "There's another entrance about 80 meters south of here on the starboard side of the main central passageway. It should lead them to another elevator. Once they're up on deck 12, there should be a corridor that will take them directly to us" he explained.

He tapped a few buttons and uploaded the route to our own omni-tools. A bright-blue line snaked its way through the ship schematics currently displayed on my screen. Cade and I both studied it, memorizing the path, then nodded at Percival.

Accer stepped up and shot his hand up into the air. "Sir, there's no doubt in my mind that Spectre's Cloud and Kitiarian could single-handedly kill every last son-of-a-bitch on this ship with their bare hands given enough time, but I'd like to request that Teewin and I accompany them nonetheless. A few biotic detonations and suppressive fire could go a long way in case things go south, sir"

I grinned at the biotic Alliance Jaeger and he grinned back. Gunnery Chief Sean Teewin voiced his agreement and powered up his massive M-76 Revenant, causing it to hum angrily to life.

"Give me something to shoot at, Lieutenant-Commander Percival. Feeling kind of inadequate here next to all these big-wigs" he begged.

"Alright, you and Lieutenant Burton can go with them. Don't do anything rash or bite off any more than you can chew, we need all four of you for the engine room. Consider combat to be optional, hell, I'd even prefer for you four to just run and sing pop songs. Either way, be safe." Percival ordered us.

"Don't worry slaps, we will" Cade scoffed.

"Good, we'll give you guys a 10 minute headstart, after which I'll lead the rest of the group to the elevators. Best of luck" Percival finished.

The four of us shared a bunch of shit-eating grins and then quickly hid them beneath our helmets. Before we departed I noticed that Camilla had grabbed Cade's hand in a wordless gesture of farewell. She looked at him with her big, brown eyes, halting him in his tracks. Cade momentarily glanced back at us as if to see if we were watching. Once he was satisfied that we were not, he squeezed her hand in both of his and leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Whatever he said must have satisfied her, because the look of worry disappeared from her face and she shot him a quick smile.

Holding back a laugh, I quickly linked the two Alliance Jaegers to our private communications channel and typed a quick message into the chat pane.

 _[SpectreOp.1C] [00:06]: Someone has a crush on Cade._

 _[AJaeg. ST] [00:07]: El Oh El._

 _[AJaeg. AB] [00:07]: Girl's a rocket, good for him._

 _[AJaeg. ST] [00:07]: I'd do him._

 _[SpectreOp. CK] [00:08]: I will end you all, starting with the ugliest one._

 _[AJaeg. AB] [00:08]: So you first then_

 _[AJaeg. ST] [00:08]: So you first then?_

 _[SpectreOp.1C] [00:08]: So you first then, right?_

 _[SpectreOp. CK] [00:09]: You are all just jealous._

Cade sighed and we all laughed quietly at him. I sincerely hoped that we would all live to get another chance to do so.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0016 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 9F – Exit B_

 _7 hours and 16 minutes after Outbreak_

" _It's the start of a new day, boys, who is up for some breakfast?"_ Cade radioed to the rest of us.

We all crouched hidden behind the door that Cade and I had been stealthed behind not half an hour ago. The door led into the main central passageway where a massive, 12 foot-tall, 3000-pound krogan Changer was currently camped a few meters away, surrounded by around a dozen of the smaller Corpsers. The rest of the Corpsers were spread around the width of the passageway immediately past these doors.

" _It's technically midnight, man"_ Teewin chided him.

" _Yeah come on guy, get your shit together"_ Accer berated him.

" _By the Spirits, I didn't know the Alliance Jaegers were a bunch of comedians"_ Cade sighed.

The main central passageway was almost 50 meters wide and a kilometer long if the specs were at all accurate. Percival and his group were aiming for a small corridor entrance about 60 meters south on the starboard side of the passage while we would enact our diversion then hightail it to a corridor entrance a bit further down on the port side. Afterwards, both groups would take their respective elevators up to deck 12 and link up.

" _Hey, Cloud. I know Percival said we didn't have to fight, just cause a distraction, but we're not actually going to listen to him, right?"_ Accer asked me.

" _We can't have that thing loose on this ship, it might make its way to the Bridge"_ I answered him.

" _Oh, hell yeah"_ Teewin whispered in joy.

" _This be the good shit, fam. I told you, these Spectres are gonna take us to all the best places"_ Accer said gleefully to his fellow squadmate.

" _What's the plan?"_ Accer asked.

I turned my helmeted head to look directly at the young biotic, adding a dash of drama to the whole situation. Cade scoffed over the radio but otherwise didn't comment on how much of a prat I was choosing to be.

" _Follow our lead"_ I whispered.

I suddenly grabbed a pair of frag grenades off the young biotic's belt, primed them and tossed them at the Corpsers accompanying the krogan Changer. They detonated with two loud bangs that would definitely attract every hostile currently wandering around the main central passageway, tearing the howling Corpsers and their Crawler parasites to metal chunks and ribbons of rotted flesh. The Changer lost chunks of its torso from the dual explosions but otherwise remained intact. It didn't howl, didn't scream, it simply tilted its head towards us to stare at us menacingly with its bright red eyes.

Cade immediately sprinted out from where he had been crouched behind the door. He immediately slid into a slide and triggered the booster jets on his armor, propelling him beneath the massive behemoth's tree-like legs and out the other side, darting past the creature's scything arms. Once safely behind him, Cade rolled to his feet and opened fire with his Vindicator onto the back of the Changer, causing it to stumble forwards ever so slightly from the barrage of gunfire.

The Changer began to turn ponderously to face Cade. It finished its turn just as Cade's heatsink overheated and began to stomp towards him.

"Cover me" I told the two Alliance Jaegers. They nodded and immediately entered the main central passageway, Teewin firing his Revenant and Accer firing his Hurricane at a couple of Corpsers moving in to investigate.

I sprinted forwards and using the hinge of the Changer's legs and its sharp metal spines as purchase, scurried my way up its massive, metal-plated back. I produced a sticky grenade from my belt, primed it, and attached it to the back of its neck before bracing both my feet against its back and using it as a springboard to somersault myself away from the grenade.

I landed deftly on my feet just as it exploded, tearing off huge chunks of its armor and blowing off part of its headplate in a violent blue detonation. It began to turn to face me but a volley of gunfire from Cade caused it to turn its attention towards him once more.

I ripped my Predator from my holster and emptied all twelve rounds into the back of its head, blowing out what was left of its brain through its shattered headplate. With barely a groan, the massive Changer buckled to its knees and dropped onto the deck with a heavy thud. Behind me the two Jaegers whooped in victory. Cade pumped one more burst into the fallen Changer, ensuring that it was indeed dead, before turning his attention to the Corpsers that the Accer and Teewin were currently engaging.

I heard moaning coming from behind us, further up the passageway in the direction of the Bridge, and knew that we were soon going to be overstaying our welcome.

"Percival, you better haul ass before you're cut off by hostiles incoming from the north" I barked into my radio.

" _Roger that, and its 'incoming from the bow' by the way. I take it you boys went loud?"_ He responded.

I glanced back to where the Changer lay sprawled on the floor. Ahead of me were the bullet-ridden remains of almost a dozen Corpsers.

"We're writing a goddamn symphony over here, Perc." I told him.

He chuckled over the radio. " _Affirmative, punch us a hole, Spectre."_

I made a gesture to Cade, signaling that we should prepare to charge, then opened a channel up to the two Jaegers.

"Accer, Teewin, on my count we run. We need to draw as much of them from this entrance as possible" I told them.

"Where should we go?" Teewin asked between bursts from his M-76 Revenant.

"Through" I said simply.

"What?"

"NOW!" I roared.

A jolt started from the back of my neck and wound its way down my arm. My amp hissed angrily as blue fire raced towards my left hand. I brought it up in a gripping gesture, firing a massive stasis bubble and rooting a whole pack of Corpsers in place. We immediately began sprinting into the group of temporarily frozen creatures. Accer and Teewin dropped another pair of frag grenades as we weaved through them, blowing them to bloody bits and buying a bit more breathing room for the rest of our group.

Another pack of Corpsers appeared ahead. This time Cade stepped up, raising his omni-tool and unleashing a devastating Overload charge right in the middle of the snarling group. Lightning arc around their bodies as the shock kept them rooted firmly in place.

I shot a pair in the head as I dashed by while Accer decapitated one with his omni-blade and Teewin dropped another with a sustained burst from his rifle. Eventually the shock wore off and the Corpsers turned to pursue us. I took a moment to steal a quick glance behind us. Two dozen Corpsers of various former species pursued us relentlessly, claws slashing wildly in the air and torn mouths wide open, looking like a sea of flashing steel and blue lights.

Way beyond them I could see Mardinus and Verus train their rifles at the back of the group while the marines led Jaelen, Rentea and Camilla down the left side of the massive passageway, with Percival in the rear. They stayed close to the wall and crept as quietly as possible, well out of the visual range of our pursuers. It didn't look like the Corpsers had noticed, none of them having broken off to engage the other team. It was about time something went our way.

"Cloud! The damn door is sealed!" Cade screamed.

I turned to look back in front of me. Teewin was currently hammering heavy kicks into a sealed door while Accer and Cade covered him. A mass of Corpsers were moving closer and closer, forming an ever- tightening ring around our little group. I brushed Teewin aside and looked at the door. Something had fried the keypad leaving it unable to be electronically opened. It seemed too thick for me to kick biotically but nonetheless I wrapped my armored leg in blue flames and gave it a few good tries. No dice.

"Well boys, we had a good run" Cade said wearily as he put a pair of bursts from his Vindicator through the open mouth of a Corpser.

I threw a Singularity that tore a trio of nearby Corpsers that were a bit too close for comfort off of their feet, leaving them dangling three meters in the air. Accer followed up with a Warp explosion that tore them to shreds and knocked a few of the nearby Corpsers to their knees. It bought us some breathing room but before long the hole that we had punched was filled with more of the snarling monstrosities. We threw together another combination while Cade fired a homing grenade into the oncoming horde but it didn't seem to make a dent in their numbers.

"this is a little bit anti-climactic. You guys suck." Accer complained as he sprayed his N7 Hurricane at the knees of a wave of incoming Corpsers, dropping them to the ground. They were only about four or five meters away now.

I grunted but otherwise kept firing at the Corpsers he had knocked to the ground, putting well-aimed bursts through their heads, buying as much time for my amp to cooldown so that I could resume my biotic assault.

Just then when I thought that maybe we were truly, utterly fucked, our channel crackled to life and an unfamiliar, flanging voice came on.

" _Twenty meters down, there's a stack of crates that will take you up to the catwalk on the next deck, be prepared to move"_ the voice said.

"Is that Galen?" mused Cade.

Gunfire hammered in from the side into the Corpser's directly infront of us. A trio of detonations blew more than a dozen of them to small, charred chunks, buying us a gap through the horde. As one, the mass of Corpsers turned towards where the gunfire had came from, distracting them from us and giving us an opening.

"Move, now!" I ordered to my team. We sprinted past their grisly remains and out towards the stack of crates that Private Galen Verus had pointed out.

The gruff, flanging voice of the veteran turian Sergeant came on next. " _Hurry, Spectre. We'll buy you as much time as we can. The rest of the group is already through"_ he said.

Off to my left I saw three figures standing outside the doorway that Percival had led his group through. Two of them were the turians Private Verus and Mardinus while the third looked to be Jay judging from the height of the marine. All three of them were causing as much damage as possible. Mardinus took a knee and pumped burst after burst from his Avenger into any incoming Corpser that came within his gunsights while Jay took out knee-joints.

Private Galen was most impressive. I watched as the young turian marine ducked under the claws of a human Corpser, spinning around it and firing a burst into the back of its head. An asari Corpser leapt at him but he pivoted and gunned it down with a long, sustained burst before it could reach him.

"Kid's got promise" Cade pointed out.

"Shut up and run" I told him.

Cade put on one last burst of speed, inching past me. He leapt up onto the first crate with a single bound and then triggered his booster jets, propelling him the rest of the way up onto the catwalk above us. Once he was well out of reach of the Corpser's beneath, he shouldered his Vindicator and began covering the rest of us as we started climbing the stack of crates.

I stayed to cover Accer and Teewin as they made their way up to the catwalk. Mardinus, Jay and Private Verus had already retreated back into their corridor and sealed the doors. Once the two Alliance Jaegers were up on the catwalk with Cade and safely out of harms way, I leapt up onto the first, then pulled myself up to the second crate and quickly onto the third, and from there let out a powerful leap that allowed me to grab onto the catwalk. I swiftly pulled myself up onto the safety of the catwalk and let out a sigh.

Below us was a crowd of maybe a hundred Corpsers, all of them snarling and howling indignantly at the prey that was only mere meters out of their deadly reach. Off in the distance I could see another Changer slowly making its way towards us surrounded by another pack of Corpsers. Accer and Teewin also both let out a sigh and stopped firing their weapons to give their heatsinks a chance to cool off. Cade held out a hand which I took and pulled myself to my feet.

"Come on, we can still reach the elevator from here" he said.

We made our way down the catwalk towards a door off to the side. The horde of Corpsers below us followed hungrily, not caring that we were well above their grasp.

"Man, those things really creep me out" Accer shuddered.

"I've been a Jaeger for almost five years and I've never seen anything like them" Teewin added. The big marine stowed his Revenant onto his back and pulled out a silenced N7 Hurricane identical to the one Accer was holding. It would be better suited for the narrow corridors that we were about to enter.

"Welcome to the team, boys" Cade grinned.

We made our way to the elevator. Cade immediately shot past me and tapped the elevator call button. The indicator lit up, notifying us that the elevator was only two decks away.

"Rule number one is to never let Cloud touch any elevator buttons" he told them.

The two Jaegers cocked their eyebrows in confusion at Cade. "Why?" asked Accer.

Cade looked at me and shot me a shit-eating grin. "It's a long story" I sighed.

Fucking Korlus.


	10. Chapter 10 - All the way to Kansas

**Chapter 10 – All the way to Kansas**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0028 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 3C – Elevator G_

 _7 hours and 28 minutes after Outbreak_

The doors slid open to reveal a trio of Corpser's milling in the middle of the corridor. In unison they turned towards us and snarled, their angry red eyes flashing brightly as they spotted new prey.

Cade and I both brought our rifles up and each put a burst right between the eyes of two of the Corpsers, snapping their heads back and knocking them dead on their asses. I noted with pleasure that I had been maybe a quarter of a second faster on the draw then my turian compatriot had been. He probably had noticed it as well, if the annoyed glance he shot at my direction was any indication.

Accer put a slightly longer burst from his silenced SMG into the chest area of the last Corpser, but nonetheless succeeded in killing it as well, choosing to fire an additional burst into its head once it had fallen to doubly ensure that it was dead. Soon the Corpsers began to convulse, their stomachs rippling and twisting as their resident Crawlers decided to make their appearance.

Teewin gave a lazy sweep with his Revenant, tearing them to bits and pieces with a long, sloppy burst. Judging from the pin-up girl stenciled onto his chest-plate and the most definitely non-regulation happy-face stickers he used as kill markers adhered to his helmet, the big marine was definitely one of the more laidback Jaegers that I'd had the pleasure of meeting. I bit back a lecture that had sprung up on instinct after witnessing his half-assed mop-up of the Crawlers. If he had been good enough to pass Jaeger training and remain under the command of Captain Murgen, I would give the marine the benefit of the doubt. Murgen had considered him one of his best, and I trusted his judgment.

"We're off the elevator, Percival. We're moving to your location now," I radioed to my friend. Cade gestured for the marines to form up in a diamond pattern while he took point. I fell in behind my friend and readied my borrowed Valkyrie. Teewin and Accer both took our left and right flanks and together we started down the corridor.

" _Sounds good, we're at the lounge now and holding it. Marines and civilians are all intact, what's your ETA?"_ Percival keyed back through his comms. set.

I brought up the maps on my omni-tool and gave them a quick eyeball. "Judging from the schematics, probably less than 10 minutes barring hostile encounters and setbacks," I told him.

" _Sounds good, stay safe,"_ he replied.

"Thanks, give Mardinus and Jay our thanks, and tell Galen that he did good."

"Tell Galen we owe him a dance, or ten," Cade chimed in. Like me he had been very impressed with the way the young marine had helped the other two veteran marines distract the Corpsers as we made our escape. He was quick, possibly as quick as Cade, and still young. With a few more years of experience he'd be one hell of a marine, provided he survived this nightmare. I silently resolved to do my best to ensure that outcome.

Teewin chuckled and rolled his shoulder in an attempt to loosen a knot in his upper back. "I know a place back on the Citadel," he suggested.

Accer scoffed and rolled his eyes. "You know like ten places."

"Yeah, he said ten dances man."

" _I'll be sure to tell him, remember, don't do anything stupid, Cade,"_ Percival sternly added before signing off.

Cade sighed and muttered something off-radio about a lack of trust or what-not, prompting the two Jaegers to chuckle quietly. To be fair, in combat scenarios I think Cade actually tended to do the least amount of stupid things. The ratio was probably me, then Percival, and then finally Cade, with about a 50-30-20 split. Out of combat was a whole different ballgame of course.

We marched silently down the corridor. Another Corpser suddenly rounded a corner, snarling animalistically and waving its claws at our direction. This time Accer was first on the draw, putting a burst right into its mouth and killing it. He put another quick burst into its stomach while it was still down, killing the Crawlers inside before they even had a chance to appear. Satisfied, he swapped out the heatsink in his N7 Hurricane and slotted a fresh one in.

" _You know, with four special forces operators instead of just two this ship became a whole less scary,"_ Cade whispered to me over our channel.

" _I don't think we count,"_ I whispered.

" _We need some new shit to shoot. Also did you forget you patched us into your private channel earlier?_ Accer whispered as well. He turned his helmet to glare at us with what I assumed would be a confused look. I couldn't see through his red visor so I couldn't know for sure.

" _Can you also explain why we're all whispering on this channel when we're all wearing full-faced helmets with voice dampeners installed?"_ Teewin added.

" _That is a damn good point,"_ conceded Cade.

Thus ended the four-man comedy show. Thank god.

We stayed quiet for a few minutes after that, choosing to remain focused on covering our designated zones. Something about the two Alliance Jaegers made Cade and I feel and act relatively immature compared to our usual selves. Maybe it was because we were all relatively the same age and in the same stages of our lives. Percival was only a few years older than I was, but he had a family and a kid and at times seemed old beyond his years.

With Rake and his crew, we were once again all roughly in the same age group but the sheer difference in experience had made Cade and I feel way older, causing us both to fall instinctively into a mentor-drill sergeant roll with the marines. Unlike the marines, the two Alliance Jaegers weren't that far off from us in skill and we're much more relatable to us than Percival. These factors had probably caused Cade and I to let loose a little bit.

"So, why do you guys have little white figures on your shoulder armor?" Cade asked, referring to the white knights astride white horses with their lances couched that was painted on every Alliance Jaeger's armor. The silence was still unnerving, special forces or not, and his attempt at conversation seemed to underline just how much it was getting under Cade's scales.

"It's an old tradition, dating back to the formation of the Jaegers," Teewin began.

"Yeah, early on Jaeger armor was made completely black to better camouflage against the backdrop of space. Before grab pods were invented Jaegers basically had to spacewalk from their ships to their targets," Accer continued.

"It was designed that way so that enemy fighter patrols couldn't eyeball them in space, or some dude looking out a window couldn't just spot them and sound the alarm," Teewin explained further.

Cade's subvocals thrummed in curiosity as he listened to their explanation. "So nothing to do with the intimidation factor?"

The young biotic Jaeger let out a sigh. "That was the second half of the problem. When the early Jaegers boarded slave ships, captured slaves would sometimes commit suicide when they saw us. Picture it, a bunch of black-armored soldiers with red visors board your ship and start killing slavers indiscriminately—sometimes you're not gonna decide to just stick around and hope you're not on their list," Accer continued with the story.

Teewin gestured at the slightly-chipped image on his shoulder. "So we started adding them to look a little less intimidating to the people we were trying to save. We made it the de facto symbol for the Jaeger program. We put it up on holo-vids, commercials, even posters on a hundred different worlds. Any slave who has seen one of them and sees this symbol would know that we were there to help."

"We also take a hardline against imposters. If a Jaeger sees a non-Jaeger with one, we tend to go apeshit. It's the equivalent of a fake emergency C-sec call," Accer finished.

Cade quietly assimilated what he had learned. "Damn, I wanted one. They look cool," he lamented.

Both the Alliance Jaegers chuckled. "Jaeger boot camp only takes nine months, they'll probably take you even if you aren't Systems Alliance," Accer assured him.

Cade snorted, "Fat chance, I don't think the Turian Hierarchy cleared cross-recruitment for the Alliance Jaegers with the Systems Alliance yet. Besides, I'm technically still in the Blackwatch."

"Damn, you're Blackwatch? But I thought you were like 25!" Teewin exclaimed.

Cade nodded at him. His subvocals were subtly beginning to interlace his words with a low, keening tone. Any mention of Blackwatch and by extension his family tended to put Cade in a melancholic state of mind.

"Turians start basic training at the age of 15 and believe it or not, what family you're from matters just as much as how well you perform when it comes to what branch of the turian military you're thrown into," Cade began quietly.

Both Jaegers had their helmeted heads cocked in Cade's direction, listening with great interest. The turian military was arguably the strongest in the galaxy, comprised of almost 12 full-sized fleets, nearly 50 dreadnoughts and millions of turian marines and soldiers grouped in legions dating back for more than thirteen millennia. If you consider the fact that every turian citizen has at least six months of basic training followed by six months of specialized training, you'll soon come to realize that when it came down to it, the turians could kick serious ass.

Cade swallowed nervously and scratched at the scalloped plates on his neck. I'd heard this story several times over the years and it always amazed me how much stock the turians put into lineage and tradition. Sure, in other militaries you sometimes saw several officers in the same branch sharing the same last name when a family had had a few generations enlist, but only in the Turian Hierarchy did you see huge military dynasties stretching back almost a thousand years. Unbroken lines of military officers or high-ranking officials dating back to their Unification Wars. Fedorian was such a dynasty, as was Victus, Oraka, Corinthus and Kitiarian.

"A Kitiarian assumed command of the Blackwatch during the Krogan Rebellions almost 1500 years ago and was instrumental in winning that war," Cade began. "Ever since, almost every commander of the Blackwatch has been a Kitiarian, and almost every Kitiarian has been a member of the Blackwatch."

"That's damn cool," Accer broke in.

Cade nodded offhandedly in agreement and continued on. "Anyways, after basic training my commanding officers thought good enough to receive further specialized training as a Ghost Infiltrator. Six months of that and I was thrown into the 26th Armiger Legion to begin my full service."

His mandibles flapped once and he blinked a few times before continuing with his story. "I served for maybe two years gathering both front-line and special operations combat experience before being picked for the Blackwatch."

"I was only about 18 at the time, definitely not the normal recruiting age for Blackwatch, but seeing as I was a Kitiarian they let it slide."

"My sister had already been serving in the Blackwatch for some number of years and she had the commander's ear. She put in a good word for me and made sure that I got as much experience operating in a Blackwatch unit as possible."

"I must have been damn good," Cade said with a hint of pride, "Because not long after that I was put into the commander's team. That was just about when the Palaven Rebellions began."

"And Galen mentioned that at some point the Blackwatch commander went rogue right?" Teewin asked him.

"Yeah, he did. And well, the rest of it I'd rather not talk about boys, at least not while sober," Cade finished wryly.

"So why do Barthilus and Verus practically kiss the very ground you walk on, while Mardinus looks at you like you ran over his dog" Accer asked. The dichotomy between the two parties and the way they treated Cade had obviously not been lost on anyone.

"Let's just say that the two things turians cherish more than duty to the Hierarchy is your duty to your family and the word of your commanding officer," Cade cryptically stated. His mandibles flashed once and then retracted tight against his jaw—a cultural expression that indicated that one did not wish to speak any further about a certain subject.

That put an end to the conversation much to the dismay of the two Jaegers. We were likely the first Spectres they had ever worked with, and Cade was probably one of the closest things the galaxy had to a war hero aside from Percival. Factor in that he was a war hero for a whole other species and it was easy to see why the two marines were so curious about the young turian.

Accer turned to me next, "And what about you, Cloud? How'd you end up with being given a Council license to do whatever you want? Were you Systems Alliance?"

I shook my head. "Everyone always assumes that, and my answer is always no," I told him.

"So, you gonna share or what?" He pressed further.

"Some other time," I promised.

Teewin and Accer both turned to direct their curiosity towards me. I withered a bit under their gaze but nonetheless held my mouth shut. Some things were better off not known.

Cade obviously did not feel the way that I did, because next thing you know his big, stupid mouth was open again and flapping away. I could always count on my boy.

"I don't know why you're always so reluctant to share your story," he admonished me, "Take some pride at where you started and at where you are now, Spirits know you've earned the right, my friend."

"So what's his damn story?" Accer asked.

"Percival and I found him on Omega, stripping at Afterlife," he chuckled, referencing the infamous club known across the galaxy as Aria's seat of power—the lawless Terminus' System's very own Citadel and it's council chamber analogue, so to speak.

"Are you serious?" Accer said incredulously.

"You've got to be pulling our leg," Teewin complained.

Cade laughed at their disbelief. "No, I'm dead serious. And that was only half of his part-time job. He used to be a delivery boy for a company that delivers what you humans call 'Pizza'. Percival and I ran into him during one of our missions on Omega, he impressed the hell out of us and next thing you know we had our third musketent"

"It's 'musketeer', and second of all only half of that is true," I corrected.

I could always count on my boy.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0037 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 49F – Lounge 3D_

 _7 hours and 37 minutes after Outbreak_

"Alright everyone, back into formation and check your firing lanes. I don't want anything creeping up on us and I most definitely do not want to be sending any letters home," Percival ordered brusquely. Could he be any more lame?

We quietly formed up with the marines at the back and sides, the scientists in the front, and us Spectres on point. I took one more quick glance at the ship's schematics. In about a hundred meters we'd exit this pedestrian corridor and find ourselves in a relatively large room filled with a bunch of machinery and spare parts for the Drive Core. The room itself wasn't as large as the main engine room but nonetheless was at least two decks tall, plus the machinery allowed for plenty of spider holes to jump us from.

It would be the perfect place to get attacked in. In my bones I felt for certain that the saboteurs would have some sort of ambush set up in a last-ditch attempt to keep us out of the main engine room. In the narrow confines of that room, any numerical advantage that we might possess over the saboteurs would be rendered useless. The machinery and the height of the room would allow us to be attacked from multiple elevations and angles, and if any of the creatures were present we'd be virtually forced to fight them at close range.

It was going to be rough.

Percival jammed a finger into his comms. set. "Lieutenant Commander Barthilus, we should be in the main engine room within the hour. What's the sit-rep on the Bridge?"

A few moments of static, then a flanging voice came on through the channel. " _We're doing okay, Spectre. A couple of entry attempts but the Jaegers held them off. Captain Farragut is awake though and thoroughly pissed. He's threatening us loudly with all sorts of different treasons, it's starting to unnerve the survivors,"_ the turian officer reported, " _What's the status of the mission team?"_

"We're green, all assets intact" Percival assured him.

"Kindly remind the captain that the Citadel Council and the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance has granted us the authority to act however we see fit to complete our mission, which can include the murder of annoying Systems Alliance captains," Cade interjected in a tone that betrayed just how fed up he was with the recalcitrant officer.

Percival shot him an angry glance, eliciting a shrug from the frustrated turian. I couldn't blame him seeing as the last thing we wanted was a bunch of survivors to start a mutiny over the way we had decided to conduct our mission. This ship, these things —they all had to be destroyed. Of that there was zero doubt among the competent senior officers.

To his credit the turian bridge officer knew how to play the practical diplomat, unlike my obstinate turian friend. " _Will do Spectre, I'll make a point to remind the Captain of the Citadel Charter, Section 13, subsection C, Paragraph 2 and the powers that it gives Council Spectres, Barthilus out."_

"Captain's actions problematic, some desperate crew might be swayed to send out a general distress signal, might decide to enact a mutiny," Jaelen sniffed worriedly.

Percival twisted his head and shot the Salarian doctor a look of assurance. "Don't worry Dr. Veers, Captain Murgen and the Jaeger's won't let that happen, I'm willing to bet my life on it," he promised.

"Hope so, wish I'd left them my supply of propofol," Jaelen lamented.

Dr. T'lana scoffed scornfully. "The man's a complete and utter coward. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you Spectre's if you just shot him and let Barthilus assume command. In all likelihood you'd probably be averting a future disaster that could get more innocent crew members killed."

"Rentea, how could you say something like that? You're a doctor" Jaelen half-gasped.

"I took an oath to save the maximum amount of lives when I can and however I can. Besides, you're the one who drugged him. Twice," she reminded the salarian.

"Yes, because he was being an obstinate buffoon and wasting precious time. Drugging him is not the same as killing him in cold blood" he said defensively.

"He turned survivors away from the bridge and got them killed" she argued.

I held up my fist as I spotted something attached to the wall in the dim light. The group immediately fell silent and halted, with the civilians immediately getting low while the shooters all looked around warily. Percival made a 'move-forward' gesture with his hand and Cade and I began to walk towards the object.

Nailed to the wall with a combat knife was a severed turian arm, cleanly cut, just like the appendages we had found before the data archives. A note was also pinned to the palm of the gruesome limb. In curling, letters were the words "come find me", followed by a little heart written in what was obviously a feminine hand. Cade angrily tore the note off, read it, and moved to hand it to Percival who inspected the message.

"She's here, that psychotic bitch is probably waiting to either ambush us in the main engine room or the machine room before it," Cade snarled. His taloned fists opened and closed repeatedly and his subvocals thrummed with anger.

I gently pulled the knife out and removed the arm from the wall. A few meters away lay the body of a turian missing an arm, not dressed in the body armor of one of the ship's security personnel but rather a simple, plain uniform decorated with the patch of the ship's cleaning crew. His plates were relatively dull and a bit cracked, denoting his older age, and I could see that his left leg had been replaced with what I recognized to be a military-grade prosthetic. He had likely lost it in combat, been honorably discharged, and had still requested to remain in service.

I moved over and placed the arm beside the turian. Camilla came up to me and held out a camo sheet that had belonged to one of the marines, the ones commonly carried to cover up any KIA's one might find in the field. I grabbed it and gently draped it over the dead turian, hiding his grievous wounds and his cold dead eyes.

Cade nodded thankfully towards me and dug his talons tight into the barrel of his Vindicator, leaving a pair of scratches on the frame of the weapon. All of us knew that something was waiting for us ahead and all of us began to mentally prepare ourselves for the coming fight. The marines were silent, and while Mardinus was as stoic and silent as ever I could see that the young private flapped his mandibles nervously, his green eyes darting back and forth between shadows.

The doors that led to the machinery room loomed ahead of us. Percival raised a hand and the group halted in its tracks once more.

"As soon as that door opens, anyone and anything in that room is going to know that we're in. Cloud, Cade, stealth and breach first, find a higher vantage point and give us elevated fire support. Radio us when you're in position," Percival ordered the pair of us.

Cade and I both nodded and activated our stealth systems. Immediately we faded from view, nothing but the absolute slightest of electrical shimmers to denote where we were.

The rest of the group moved temporarily into one of the side corridors as we crab-walked over to the doors and activated them. A green light lit up and they slid open with a slight hiss. No gunfire, but I knew for certain that our presence was expected.

Cade and I slid into the room, silent and stealthed. As the schematics had shown, it was a double-tiered room filled with machine parts, large servers, and towering crates. Although it said that the room was only maybe 60 meters long, it was impossible to see from one end to the other if one were to stand at any point on the lower level.

I scanned the room for any careless saboteurs and began to scout for a good place to set up. Luckily for me, a large crate towered far to my left, in the corner of the room. It would allow me to reach the catwalks that ringed the second tier and would give me the elevation that I'd need to cover Percival's team.

I padded over and silently leapt, gripping the top of the crate with just the very tips of my fingers. Thankfully I wasn't too heavy, even in light armor, else this could be a lot harder than it had any right to be. Lightly bracing my feet against it, I pulled myself up as quickly and as quietly as I could. I scanned the top of the crate, checking for any light shimmers that might denote a saboteur's presence on top of the crate.

Satisfied that no one else had decided to pick out my eagle's nest for their own, I carefully lay down and unhooked my Valkyrie from my back, laying it flat directly in front of me. From this position I'd have a relatively decent view of maybe half the room. If I needed to, I could then pull myself up to the catwalk and relocate for a better firing lane.

I opened up a channel to my fellow Spectres and reported in. " _I'm in the northwest corner of the room atop a crate, I've got a good vantage point on maybe half the room. Cade, where are you at?"_

" _Roger that,"_ Percival radioed back.

" _I need another thirty seconds"_ Cade replied.

I counted to thirty in my head before reopening the link. " _Done?"_

A brief grunt and a light clang sounded through the channel. I shook my head at my friend's sloppiness. For all his vaunted Ghost Infiltrator training, Cade lacked the utter finesse that I would have expected from a member of their elite infiltration corps. Or maybe he was just getting sloppy. In fact, I wouldn't mind brushing up on my stealth skills either. I knew that there was always room for improvement, and the stubborn turian might be more willing to take a training course if I volunteered to take it with him.

" _Alright, I'm in position, I've got a vantage point on the full room,"_ Cade reported.

I cocked my eyebrows in confusion. " _What? Where are you?"_ I asked.

" _See that heavy loader suspended from the ceiling? I'm in the cockpit,"_ the turian smugly replied

I looked up and saw the loader in question. It was halfway into the room off to the right side and suspended with a bunch of winches and cables high above even the second tier. Below it looked to be some sort of cargo lift that likely led to one of the cargo bays. I had noticed it on my way in, but had dismissed it as too exposed and too hard to get to on short notice. Sure, it granted a full view on the entire room, but anyone who looked up would see you once you started firing.

" _How did you even get up there?"_ I asked incredulously.

" _Don't be jealous,"_ Cade responded.

" _I'm not. I just hope you know that once you're made you're going to be a god damn bullet magnet. I hope you have a plan for a speedy exit."_

" _Leave that to me,"_ he said cryptically.

I rolled my eyes. " _Whatever. Do you have eyes on any saboteurs?"_ I asked him.

" _No. But from what I see, it's likely the saboteurs are set up on the ground floor. The second-tier catwalks don't have any sort of cover, and the boxes and machines on the first floor make it much easier to flank."_ Cade assessed.

" _Noted. Percival, we're both in position now. Enter when ready,"_ I told the marine Spectre.

" _About god damn time, now watch and learn, boys,"_ he simply replied

The doors slid open once again and a large, black-armored figure wrapped in red tech armor sprinted through, emitting a loud, angry war cry, his footsteps clanging loudly on the deck without any regard for stealth or silence.

I watched as a trio of saboteurs suddenly de-cloaked about ten meters away from him, directly in the path of Percival's reckless rush. Judging from the slowness with which they raised their rifles at him and the look that they shared with each other, they had been caught flat-footed by his unexpected maneuver. They had been expecting a group of wary, anxious marines protecting a bunch of civilian scientists moving slowly and cautiously into the room, not a lone, angry, 6'5 230lb Spectre in full battle armor charging directly at them.

Their hesitation cost them a lot more than I'd ever want to pay. The saboteur in the lead managed to squeeze off a burst from his silenced Avenger that merely glanced off of Percival's tech armor right before Percival's shoulder went crashing into his helmet, knocking him flat onto his back nearly four meters away.

Before the other two saboteurs could blink, Percival was upon them. A bright-red omni-blade suddenly sprung up from the barrel of his M-7 Lancer Assault Rifle. He pivoted and drove it deep into the chest of the saboteur on his left, the slow-moving blade bypassing the kinetic shielding completely and biting deep into his chest cavity, killing him instantly. The saboteur's rifle dropped limply out of his hands and I could see his head dip down to the side as the life left his body.

The saboteur that was now behind Percival tried to bring her rifle up to bear but Percival violently yanked his rifle's omni-blade out of the first saboteur and in that same motion elbowed her hard in the chest, sending her crashing into a crate of machinery about two feet away.

I saw her tilt her helmet up just in time to see the shoulder stock of Percival's Lancer go straight into her visor, whipping her head back against the crate. With his victim stunned by his melee attack, Percival ignited the omni-blade in his left hand and drove it deep into her stomach. I could hear her desperate, pained screams even from here.

The screams ended when Percival tore his omni-blade out of the saboteur. Deactivating the gory red blade of light, he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and turned to face the last saboteur who had managed to prop himself up just in time to witness the gruesome end of his two comrades. Desperately, the saboteur began to scuttle away from the Spectre. I couldn't blame him. In the dim glow of the emergency lights, Percival's red tech armor, massive build, and onyx-black N7 armor made him look like a demon straight from hell.

" _Damn Percival, you just killed a girl,"_ Cade quipped.

Percival ignored Cade, he simply walked up and put a long burst right into the poor man's face, shattering the faceplate and blowing out the back of the man's head in a burst of red matter.

Half a dozen more saboteurs de-cloaked, all of them stationed on the catwalk above me. In unison, they all opened fire with their Lancers on Percival.

The big ex-marine ducked behind a nearby data server, just managing to avoid the relentless barrage. The server began to hiss and crackle and the torrential rain of bullets began to chew threw its plating and its cabling.

" _Marines, now!"_ roared Percival.

The doors slid open once again and this time Accer and Teewin followed by the two turians moved in. They began firing on the saboteurs up on the catwalk, their combined fire quickly bringing down three of them as the saboteurs stood exposed, completely focused on trying to kill Percival. Once they realized that someone else was hitting them, the remaining three shifted fire onto the marines, Percival being momentarily forgotten as they turned to deal with this new threat.

But Accer was quick on the draw. The moment the barrels of their rifles turned towards the marines, he raised his left hand and a corona of shimmering, blue light encased the group in a protective barrier. The saboteur's rounds impacted harmlessly against the barrier, the respite allowing the marines to move right into cover and begin trading bullets from a more defensive position.

More and more saboteurs uncloaked throughout the room and began focusing on Percival and the marines, who began to trade fire in return from where they had taken cover. Suddenly, four quick bursts dropped two of the three remaining saboteurs up on the catwalks as Cade finally made his move. The last saboteur turned his attention from the marines and shifted fire up towards the loader Cade was currently perched in. I could see bright muzzle flashes erupt from somewhere beneath the loader, indicating that there were also saboteurs firing from somewhere under the turian.

That was my cue. I sprang up from my vantage point and with one quick motion vaulted onto the catwalks directly above me, deactivating my tactical cloak as I did so. The saboteur who had been firing at Cade turned in alarm at the armed intruder who had just appeared from thin air not three meters away from where he had been standing.

My first burst hit the body of his rifle, causing it to explode in a shower of sparks and metal shards. My second slammed into his forehead while my third went right into his tinted visor, spraying the bulkhead behind him in a fine, red mist. Without a sound, he slumped to the ground and I activated my cloak once more, fading from view.

A loud crack caused my head to whip around, trying to pinpoint its source. I watched as a pair of cables keeping the loader suspended in the air suddenly snapped in half, causing the loader to list terribly to one side. Before I could radio a warning to my friend, I saw Cade fire another pair of bursts into the winches holding the last two cables up. With a loud snap they broke as well and the loader dropped nearly twenty meters onto the ground. I could hear a gut-wrenching cry well up as one of the saboteurs began screaming about his leg. Some moments later a third burst rang out and the cry stopped.

" _Jaegers, marines, form up on Cade!_ " Percival ordered. I watched as the group dashed from cover to cover and homed in on Cade's position, which was now off to the side of the room.

I saw many of the remaining saboteurs begin to turn and face the newly consolidated position of the two Spectres and their marine shooters. They now had their backs to me and their right flank to the door we had all come through. Another pair of them fell to concentrated fire from the Jaegers and Percival, but the rest had taken cover and resumed trading bullets with the now entrenched opposition.

" _Gunnery Chief Hinzo, move in now,"_ I heard Percival order over the radio.

The door slid open again and I saw the four marines from the SSV Excalibur slip quietly into the room with the scientists and Camilla close by. The saboteurs were still preoccupied with Percival and his team, leaving their arrival and the perfect flanking position that they had taken up completely unnoticed. This was it, we'd break their backs here and finally end them.

Camilla and Jaelen opened up, lobbing a pair of Incineration bolts right into the flanks of the saboteurs, catching three of them in a fiery mess that quickly left a trio of charred, molten corpses on the deck floor before they even found the chance to scream. Rake and the marines cut down another pair with precise rifle fire, thinning down their ranks even further. The remaining saboteurs, now caught between Percival's team and Rake's, found themselves in a precarious position as they found themselves being assaulted on two separate flanks. Rentea threw up a barrier as a few of the saboteurs tried to return fire on Rake and his team, but many of the surviving saboteurs began to retreat, moving towards the doors that led to the engine room.

Any other special forces team might have taken the opportunity to start closing the jaws around the necks of the saboteurs, but Camilla and the scientists weren't trained soldiers and the marines were needed for protection detail. That left the Jaegers, Percival, Cade and the turians, but if they advanced they might find themselves in the line of fire of Rake and his marines on one side and the saboteurs on the other.

Still stealthed in my tactical cloak, I lightly leapt off of the catwalk and landed on the balls of my feet, with one hand braced against the floor. I rose from my three-point landing and produced the pair of Talon combat knives from their sheaths that I had strapped to my lower back. I began to quietly make my way to the nearest source of gunfire that marked a saboteurs location.

I found a saboteur with one shoulder braced against the side of a crate, his rifle raised and exchanging weapons fire with my friends. I moved up behind him and drove one of my knives into the man's armpit area, where there was only the microweave undersuit and no armor plating. My knife went directly into his heart, judging by the swiftness with which he suddenly crumpled. He slumped against the crate that he had been firing against and died without a word.

I moved on to the next source of gunfire. Without breaking out of stealth I wove my way through the mess of machinery and crates, sometimes forced to dodge stray weapons fire from my own allies. I made my way behind a data server to where a pair of saboteurs were currently hiding. One of them was a large man who was firing his rifle on full auto towards my friends while the smaller one was crouched behind him, busy trying to slip a new heatsink into his rifle.

I knelt in front of the man trying to reload and jammed one knife right underneath his chin, killing the saboteur instantly. I could hear his friends calling to him through the radio in his helmet but I couldn't pick out what they were saying. No matter, he wasn't exactly around to respond any longer. The heatsink rolled out of his lifeless fingers and onto the deck. I swiftly ripped my knife out of his chin and turned my head towards his compatriot.

The bigger saboteur hadn't noticed the demise of his friend, preoccupied as he was with returning fire. From where I knelt I jammed my other knife directly into the back of his knee, bringing him kneeling onto the deck with a pained gasp. Like his friend I could hear voices coming from inside his helmet, but this time I could hear them more clearly, yelling at him to fall back. I raised the knife I had killed his buddy with and drew it in a sharp, vicious line against his throat. The kinetic shielding and the microweave undersuit did nothing to stop titanium-carbon blade from cutting through his windpipe. The big saboteur brought his hands up to the ruin of his throat and began gasping loudly.

I moved quickly from the two fallen saboteurs and found the last six of them backpedaling towards the door, laying out a desperate volley of suppressive fire to cover their retreat.

The first one went down as a burst of Lancer fire ripped through his shields and cracked open his chestplate. The next took a bolt from what I recognized to be Camilla's Geth Plasma Shotgun right into her stomach and dropped to her knees, cradling her burned insides. One of her comrades grabbed her by the back of her armor and tried to pull her away but a burst from Cade's Vindicator tore right through his shields and into his helmet, dropping him on top of her.

In that moment I almost felt bad for the saboteurs, even though I also felt that the truth was that they had resigned themselves to this treatment the moment that they had decided to release the virus that had killed nearly a thousand crew members aboard this ship.

Even then I didn't relish the violence. As horrendous the crimes that these saboteurs had committed, I knew that they were still people. They might have families, might have hobbies, likes and dislikes. They might have overcame numerous personal challenges in their lives, triumphed over countless struggles, might have held the door open on their way out for someone behind them, might have had favourite movies, favourite restaurants, foods, songs.

They were still people, and each individual is a complex amalgamation of a countless number of different experiences, thoughts, and actions that have meaning, that have significance, no matter if they had done something to make us consider them "evil" or not.

You'd think that being given a license to kill, Spectres would be encouraged to de-humanize their targets, to make it easier to remove them in the name of galactic safety. The exact opposite was true, at least in the case of Spectres such as Percival, Cade and I. We each knew the value and worth that existed in every single life, be it human, turian, whatever.

Contrary to what one might think it didn't stop us from making the hard choices, didn't stay our trigger fingers when our guns were pointed at those who committed horrific crimes or stop us from sometimes making those hard "one-life-for-a-thousand" decisions that haunt lesser men.

It made the act of taking a life something that wouldn't be viewed callously, but rather as a necessity, and above all it made the act of saving a life all the more valuable. We didn't want to see those that we killed in the line of duty as nothing more than targets, because in doing so we would eventually lose our ability to see the lives we saved as worth saving. They too would just become another target, so to speak. If we did that, then the galaxy would just be filled with numbers rather than people. Everything would boil down to simple arithmetic and we wouldn't be saving people anymore, just a statistic.

" _All teams hold fire, I've got the rest of them,"_ I radioed my friends.

The gunfire from Percival and the marines ceased abruptly, causing the saboteurs to look around in confusion. I stepped out from behind the piece of machinery that I was taking cover behind and raised my Predator. I squeezed off eight shots, the first four directly going into the throat of the saboteur on the left, the disruptor ammunition cutting through his kinetic shielding and severing his spinal cord. The saboteur on the right moved in front of the last saboteur, taking the next four directly to his helmet.

The pair of them crumpled to the floor, their smoking rifles still tightly clutched in their hands, where the first proceeded to choke on the blood that I knew was slowly filling their lungs while the other simply lay there while a growing pool of blood spilled from his ruptured visor.

The last saboteur let her rifle fall from shaking hands and dropped to her knees. She ripped her helmet off, revealing a pale, moon-shaped face with tear tracks streaking down her cheeks. She was probably a few years younger than I was. Her lip quivered as I un-cloaked in front of her. Her eyes shifted between the smoking barrel of my Predator in one hand and the blood-stained combat knife in my other, then up to me as I slowly walked towards her.

I couldn't begin to fathom how terrified she must have been, then and there. First having to watch three of her friends be ruthlessly dispatched by a huge figure in glowing, red tech armor, then watching the rest die one by one, and finally seeing this ghost appear out of nowhere and gun down her last two companions, clutching a knife stained with the blood of what must have been her fellow friends.

In an uncharacteristic moment of pity I lowered my pistol. Behind me I could hear the footsteps of my friends as they moved to stand with me. I could hear the rasp that their rifles made as they trained them on the figure kneeling in front of us. It must have only served to terrify her even more, because she let out a loud, wracking sob that I was sure could be heard halfway through the ship.

I sheathed my knife and holstered my pistol, taking a small step towards her. I brought up both hands to my helmet and unsealed it so that she could look me in the face and see that I was a human being, just like her. "Surrender and you'll be granted a right to a fair trial and to an attorney. It doesn't have to end here," I told her.

She sniffled and shook her head, her voice cracking as she began to speak. "It's too late. Please, believe me when I say I didn't want this, didn't want any of this," she whispered.

Her right hand came out from behind her back, a Predator held in one shaky fist. Her arm trembled as she leveled it shakily at my chest.

A rapid set of footsteps moved up behind me. "Put down the weapon, miss," Rake ordered, his Lancer up and trained squarely at the girl's forehead.

The saboteur merely sobbed again, tears flying freely down her face, but otherwise didn't comply with the Gunnery Chief's orders. He barked at her to lower her weapon again, prompting her to cry even harder. The tears that fell to the ground around her weighed more heavily on me than all the blood I had spilled since I had come aboard this ship combined.

I stepped into his line of sight and raised both my hands in a gesture of placation. "Just come with us. Testify against the ringleaders and we can guarantee your safety, maybe even reduce your sentence. Tell us what they're planning, why they started all of this, and what they intend to do next. Help us save lives."

She shook her head again. "No, they'll kill me. There's nowhere that I'll be safe."

Percival tried to move up but she shifted her aim towards him, causing him to step back. "Miss, I promise you that we won't hurt you. Put the gun down and come with us," he said reassuringly.

The saboteur stopped crying then, her grip on her gun ceased to shake and she blinked away her tears to regard us with a clear, steady gaze.

"I just wanted my brother to see them again. I never wanted to hurt anyone, I never wanted any of this, but they told us that it was the only way, that we'd be able to bring them back anyways once we'd figured out how to transcend," she said softly.

"I'm so sorry," she finished. She raised her pistol just as my hand began to curl with blue energy, but before I could put her in stasis the young saboteur pressed the barrel to her temple and pulled the trigger.

I closed my eyes, sparing me from the sight of her ruined head. I heard a light thump as her body fell to the ground and a light sob from behind me as either Camilla or Rentea failed to hold back their feelings.

I opened them again and moved to kneel beside her. I closed her wide, staring eyes and turned back to regard my fellow Spectres.

"She said she was sorry," I said to no one in particular. Cade knelt beside me and pulled out another camo blanket from one of his utility pouches, draping it over her small form respectfully and dipping his head.

"They're not all crazy, like that salarian or that female doctor," Cade rasped, "It sounded as if she was acting somewhat under duress, promised some kind of reward for her involvement but living in fear of what they might do to her if she stopped."

I nodded at my friend and crossed my arms against my chest. My mind went back to the data archives and the neurotic salarian. "Transcend, she spoke of transcendence, just like that saboteur back at the data archives," I said thoughtfully.

Cade tilted his head to look me in the eye. "Any idea what they meant?" he asked me.

I shook my head slowly. "No, not a clue, could be some kind of religious significance?" I haphazardly guessed.

"Maybe, I wish we knew more," he concluded ruefully.

I nodded once more in agreement and stood up.

"Rake, take your marines and do a quick sweep of all the bodies. Grab anything useful —ammunition, grenades, even ration packs or water bottles—and bring them all here. I want us fully prepared for whatever we might find in the engine room," I ordered. The marines all saluted and began to move from fallen saboteur to saboteur, occasionally grabbing something off their utility belts.

I frowned and as an added afterthought signaled to my corpsman. "Fly, check for any survivors," I told him.

The black corpsman nodded to me and booted up the medical scanner on his omni-tool, taking a knee beside the body of one of the saboteurs. I doubted that there were any survivors, but it never hurt to try. If even one of them still lived, perhaps we could find out more about their true motives and minimize the amount of blood that we had to spill.

I turned to the turian marines next. "Mardinus, you and Verus go and guard the door to the engine room," I ordered them, "Camilla, Jaelen, Rentea, go with them. You too Cade"

They all nodded to me and walked off, weapons at the ready. I could hear the marines some distance away, muttering amongst themselves about what the saboteurs could possibly be trying to accomplish.

That left Teewin, Accer and Percival. As I stared contemplatively at the body of the saboteur, the biotic Jaeger moved beside me and clapped one hand onto my shoulder. His helmet was off and tucked underneath his other arm.

"It's never easy, watching someone take their own life," he said sadly as his gaze fixated on the sheet-covered body lying off to the side.

I tilted my head and regarded him curiously. "You sound like you've seen a lot of that," I said to him.

He nodded and sighed. "Not every slaver is a cold-blooded monster. God, I wish they all were, it'd make it so much easier…" he trailed off.

Teewin removed his helmet as well, revealing Puerto-Rican features and a rough, stubbly beard. He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. "Once in a while we'll board a ship and find a few kids. Slavers, but they'd be no more than 18, sometimes as young as 13 or 14. They get probably got roped in with the wrong crowd and next thing you know they're aboard a slave ship, in over their heads and with no way out" he explained.

"Slavery is outlawed in all of Council Space. It's a minimum sentence of five years for first-time lighter offences involving maybe a handful of slaves, and up to life-imprisonment or the death penalty for heavier ones or repeat offences," Accer continued. "Sometimes after we've boarded, some slavers would decide that they'd rather die than face a lifetime behind bars," he finished sadly.

Percival and I shared a glance with each other and both shook our heads. Every time a big war finishes, or a terrorist is stopped, or a murderer was found and brought to justice, it was tempting to think that maybe, just maybe the horrors would cease. The reality was that that would never happen.

Murder, rape, kidnappings, and mass terror attacks hadn't stopped with the conclusion of the Reaper War. There wasn't a lasting happily ever after. It was up to the vigilant watch of those brave few such as Accerrimus Burton or Sean Teewin to try and make that happiness last just a little bit longer for the galaxy at large. They had seen things, done things, so that no one else would have to. They had dedicated their lives to keeping that darkness at bay.

They would have made good Spectres.

I looked back at them and nodded. "I promise you, we'll find the ones who orchestrated this. We'll find out why they did this and they'll be made to answer for their crimes. Go get Rake and his team and load up on ammunition, I didn't see any of the ringleaders during our fight so I expect we'll get to meet them soon," I told them.

They nodded and moved away. I took one last look at the saboteur and sighed. I didn't know the first thing about her—I didn't even know her name, but I doubted that I would ever forget her face.


	11. Chapter 11 - Severed

**Chapter 11 - Severed**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0118 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Main Engine Room_

 _8 hours and 18 minutes after Outbreak_

" _What do you see?_ " Camilla asked.

" _Linking helmet feed now,"_ I responded. I pressed a small button on the side of my helmet and watched as a small blue camera icon began flashing on my HUD. I quickly tapped it again, then used a small dial beneath it to cycle onto the channel I was currently sharing with Camilla. A bar quickly filled up and flashed once, indicating that Camilla could now see what I saw through her own omni-tool.

I shifted two steps to the left, taking myself directly out of the path of a patrolling Corpser. It growled, seemingly able to sense my presence, a thin line of drool spilling out from its mouth. A more likely explanation could be that it somehow sensed my body heat, as I doubted that it could see me through my tactical cloak.

I ignored it and focused my gaze on the drive core itself. It was massive, it had to be to power a ship the size of the Hippocrates. The core's center, usually a bright, pulsating blue, was black and cold, indicating that it was currently offline.

" _Can you turn your gaze roughly thirty degrees to the left?"_ she asked next. I slowly turned my head as she asked, directing my view towards one of four large cables coming out from the bottom of the drive core and each running to connect to an outlet installed in the massive engine upon which the drive core rested.

" _That's great, now turn your gaze about 60 degrees up."_

I followed her directions again, this time tilting my head up towards the ceiling. Four pillar-like metal contraptions fed from the ceiling directly into the drive core. While I'd never seen these specific models, I knew that they were likely the Eezo feeders— picture a cathode ray tube encased in metal, but instead of firing electrons it fired tiny Element Zero particles into the drive core itself, giving it the ability to generate the Mass Effect fields that it used for space travel.

" _Excellent, thanks Cloud. Cade, can you do the same thing?"_

" _You got it, beautiful,"_ my friend responded.

I waited for Camilla to diagnose the status of the drive core, careful to keep my view and therefore her view on the piece of technology in question. Cade and I had both stealthed in to perform a reconnaissance on the room and the drive core before we decided to move the whole group in here. It had been a wise decision considering the fact that this place was swarming with Corpsers.

The main engine room itself was highly reminiscent of the data archives. The room was circular and consisted of five levels, with metal catwalks ringing the perimeter of level that were filled with several data servers and consoles. The walls held numerous vents and fans, I could see dozens of coolant cables snaking up and down the walls, feeding directly into the engine. Numerous metal staircases linked each level with the next.

The engine itself sat at the center of the bottom floor. It ran for nearly the whole height of the room. On top of it was the drive core with the four Eezo Feeders above it. Cables, just like the ones Camilla had had me inspect, connected the drive core to the engine itself.

A large catwalk fed from the outer ring into a smaller inner ring around the drive core itself that would allow maintenance technicians access to the sophisticated piece of machinery, kind of like two concentric circles. Cade was currently stealthed on the outer circle while I was stealthed on the inner, the both of us simultaneously feeding Camilla visual data so that she'd have a better idea what we'd be dealing with.

The Corpser had swung back around and was headed my way again, this time accompanied by one of its smaller brethren. The catwalks that Cade and I were on and the catwalk that ringed the drive core was a uniform sixteen feet wide at all points, plenty of room.

" _Think you can fix it?"_ I asked Camilla.

" _Hmm… yes. It looks like the feeders have been disconnected, I won't know for sure until I check in person. The engine couplers are what bothers me, the ones on your side seem fine but the ones that Cade showed me seem off. Once again I'll need to be there to give you a more detailed diagnosis,"_ she replied.

" _No problem, once we clear the room we'll get you all set up. How long do you think it'll take to fix the feeders?"_ I asked the technician.

" _They don't look damaged, just turned off. Maybe two to three minutes per feeder?"_ she answered.

" _Alright, I'm going to speak to Percival for a second, okay?"_

" _Sure."_

I toggled to the private channel I shared with Cade and Percival and hailed the former marine. " _Percival, opposition is kind of thick, but no saboteurs so far."_

" _Numbers?"_ he replied.

I glanced around the room and quickly counted what used to be the crew " _maybe twenty or thirty of them, spread out across all five levels? There are tons of potential ingress points though, so we can expect more"_ I answered.

" _The catwalk leading up to the drive core itself is relatively narrow and easily defendable. The creatures don't have any sort of long-range capabilities so you could use it as a funnel, but it lacks any sort of cover so you might be exposed if the saboteurs do show up,"_ Cade added.

After a few moments consideration, Percival came on the channel again. " _Alright, same deal as before, you two pick your spots and stay stealthed. Let us deal with the resistance in the room and let us deal with covering Camilla. Don't reveal yourselves unless I call for it."_

" _You got it slaps."_

" _Roger."_

The two Corpsers stood in the inner ring, staring intently at the Drive Core. A part of me wanted so badly to kill them now, maybe throw them off the catwalk with my biotics or put a pair of shots into the base of their skulls from behind.

I shook my head and thought better of it. If I made myself now every single hostile in the room would begin converging onto the top level rather than remain spread out across the room. It would mean that the concentration of enemy forces around our point of interest would instantly skyrocket, making it harder for our team to access the Drive Core.

While Cade and I could theoretically go somewhere else and draw them off, Percival was banking on the fact that the saboteurs still had one more trick up their sleeves, no matter how badly it had seemed that we had beaten them back in the previous room. We wanted our own little trump card handy. It was a shame that we were out of bullets for our sniper rifles, or else the second they showed their faces they'd lose them.

" _What spot do you want?"_ I radioed to my friend.

" _See that coolant cabling up to the left? It's thick enough for me to sit on and it'll give me a panoramic view of the entire top level,"_ he replied.

" _Damn, that was my first choice."_

" _Too bad, got a second?"_

" _Who do you take me for?"_

" _The poor man's version of me, but with shiny blue powers."_

I neglected to respond, instead padding my way softly over to the side of the catwalk that led to the inner ring around the drive core. I knelt down and gripped the edge with one hand before silently slipping off the catwalk, my feet now dangling fifty meters up in the air.

I grabbed the edge with my other hand as quietly as I could and began to move towards the Drive Core, pulling myself along the edge one hand at a time. I made my way to the inner ring and dropped lightly onto the engine itself, in the space that wasn't occupied by the Drive Core that sat atop the engine. This put me about six feet below the catwalks on the upper levels. While it didn't give me as good of a view of the upper level as Cade's perch did, it would give me a better view of the lower levels. There was enough space that I could move around the whole Drive Core, and getting back up wouldn't be too difficult.

" _So where are you?"_ Cade asked.

" _I'm on the engine itself. If you're gonna focus on covering the top level I'll focus on covering the lower ones,"_ I replied.

" _It's like you can read my mine and I can read yours,"_ he joked.

" _God, I hope not. Percival, we're in position, enter when ready."_

" _Roger."_

I watched as the doors on the ground level slid open and Jay and Fly march in. A pair of Corpsers who'd been milling around immediately twisted their heads towards them and bolted straight towards the two marines.

Jay and Fly both put sustained bursts right into the heads, and then the stomachs, of the Corpsers. The misshapen beasts both died and Jay turned to wave in the rest of the group. A cacophony of howling erupted around the room as the rest of the Corpsers reacted to their entry. I watched as Soph and Rake move to the nearest set of stairs and gun down another Corpser at the top of them.

Percival, the turians and the civilian staff came next. Galen and Mardinus fired at a few targets on the upper levels while Percival kept watch for any saboteurs. Accer and Teewin brought up the rear, covering the door they'd came through.

Jay and Fly were the first up the stairs. I watched as they killed another Corpser that had decided to charge at the group. A nearby wall vent burst open and the warped, twisted head of another Corpser appeared, but Private Galen put a burst through its open mouth, causing it to fall back into the vent. Rake and Soph and Mardinus fired on additional targets on the upper levels, sending long bursts through knee joints and legs, forcing their targets to slowly pull themselves towards their intended prey.

" _Enjoying the show?"_ Cade asked.

" _I hate delegating,"_ I responded.

Percival blew off the head of another Corpser mid-leap while Rake destroyed the Crawlers it carried. The team began to move up each set of stairs, going from deck to deck in the engine room and gunning down any Corpser that tried to intercept their ascent. Fly, Jay and Soph fell to the rear with Accer and Teewin, directing their rifle fire towards pursuing Corpsers that had also decided to emerge from the vents.

The pair of Corpsers that had been standing near the Drive Core turned towards the approaching group. The first one, what used to be an asari, ran straight at Private Galen. He slipped underneath its slashing claws and with one quick shove pushed it right off the catwalk. I heard it howling furiously on the way down, only for the howls to cease right after I heard a sickeningly wet crunch.

The last Corpser also charged towards the young turian. This one had been a large, burly human and likely outweighed the private by a good 80 lbs even with his armor. Instead of meeting it head on, Galen spun around it and fired twice into the back of its knees, bringing it down, before ripping a Talon from his sheath and slamming it into the back of his head. Mardinus followed behind, firing a long burst into the Crawlers that struggled to pull themselves up.

" _That wasn't half bad,"_ Cade told the young turian.

"T-t-thank you, sir," Galen nervously called out.

The two turian marines then took covering positions beside the drive core. Camilla and Jaelen sprinted across first, followed closely by Rentea and Percival. The four marines and the two Alliance Jaegers took up position at the end of the catwalk, guarding the entrance and occasionally gunning down an approaching Corpser.

"Miss Martell, do your stuff," Percival gestured towards the drive core.

Camilla ran to the sophisticated piece of machinery in question and immediately began tightening a number of valves and rings on the first feeder. After about two minutes the feeder turned blue and she moved on to the next one. Jaelen and Rentea stood watch around the inner catwalk, sometimes lobbing an Incineration bolt or a Warp at the monsters below.

"As I suspected, the feeders are only turned off. First one's done, I should have the rest of the feeders turned on in about ten minutes" Camilla reported.

Percival nodded at the drive core technician. "Good, what about the couplers?"

Camilla paused and ran towards the back of the drive core. After a moment she ran back.

" _Mierda,_ it looks like the couplers have been damaged. I'll do my best to repair them with omni-gel but they might take a little bit longer," she reported.

"Keep at it, we'll cover you" Percival nodded. He shouldered his assault rifle and scanned the room, taking position on the catwalk itself leading into the outer ring.

Cade and I watched silently as our team went about their duties, occasionally calling out targets of opportunity but otherwise remaining silent. After a while, Camilla had re-activated all four feeders atop the drive core. The blue light that should have been present flashed brightly and began to flicker back on, signaling that the drive core was once again being supplied with element zero. It began to hum softly and we could feel a slight electric crackle in the air as the subtle mass effect waves began filling the room.

"Feeders are working at 100% capacity! I'm going to take a look at the couplers next, cover me!" Camilla called out.

She dashed to the other side of the inner ring to the opposite end of the Drive Core and began tinkering with one of the massive cables that ran into the engine itself.

A series of heavy thumps drew my attention to the bottom floor. I looked down and spotted not one, but three massive Changers walk into the engine room, the cable-tentacles on their shoulder lashing back and forth, their claws dragging against the ground.

" _Percival, we got company!"_ I yelled into my radio.

I saw Percival look over the edge of the catwalk. " _Shit! If they get up here we'll have no room to out maneuver them!"_ he cursed.

" _Want us to engage?"_ Cade immediately asked.

Percival dashed off the catwalk, past the marine blockade and down the stairs back to the bottom floor.

" _No, stay in reserve and cover the scientists, we'll handle this."_

I cursed angrily and grunted. As good as Percival was, he'd be hard-pressed to hold off, let alone kill, three of the massive behemoths at once.

"Accer, Teewin, you're on me! We don't need to kill them, we just need to hold them off until Camilla gets the engine fixed!" he shouted to the Alliance Jaegers.

The two black-clad marines yelled in the affirmative and followed the big Spectre back down to the bottom floor. I cursed again and seriously debated my disobeying my friend.

As if he could somehow read my mind and sense my turmoil, Cade came on the channel to reassure me " _Cloud, have faith in Percival. They'll need us if the saboteurs show up."_

I didn't respond, instead choosing to bite my lip and keep an eye out on the rest of the engine room. Below me I could hear gunfire and grunting as the three marines faced down the three Changers.

Suddenly, a small, metallic orb appeared out of thin air and landed on the catwalk, rolling lazily beneath the feet of the two turian marines. Galen looked down in confusion at the small object, then towards the veteran turian sergeant.

Mardinus's mandible's splayed open in alarm and the sergeant immediately moved towards the orb. Before he could reach it and kick it away, it detonated in a bright, blue sizzling crackle of electricity. Galen and Mardinus both went down as the Arc grenade shorted out their shields and shocked them unconscious. They both went down hard onto the inner ring, thankfully neither of them had been too close to the edge or else they could have possibly fallen.

I watched as a figure clad in black and gold armor suddenly appear amidst Rake and his team. It was the turian who had fought Cade back in the data archives, one of the leaders of the saboteurs.

Jay turned first, his eyes wide with alarm at the sudden appearance of the saboteur not two steps away from him. He reacted, attempting to bring his rifle up.

The turian saboteur shot his left hand out and held down the barrel while his right shot squarely into Jay's throat. The hand Jay had held the barrel of his Lancer with reflexively went up to his throat as he began to choke and cough.

This allowed the turian to rip the Lancer out of Jay's hand and to send the stock crashing into the smaller marine's head, knocking him out cold onto the floor.

Soph turned next but was met with a heavy backhand by the turian saboteur. It crashed into her helmet and sent her reeling down on one knee. The turian sent a heavy kick right into the back of her head and Soph went facedown onto the deck alongside Jay.

Rake and Fly both turned and saw their fellow squadmates unconscious around the feet of the turian. They cursed at the silent figure standing over the bodies of their friends and readied themselves. Being absolutely useless in such extreme close quarters, both marines discarded their rifles as they moved to engage the turian.

Rake aimed a heavy fist right at his head but the turian slipped under it, stepping right into his guard and sent an armored elbow right into the face of the Gunnery Chief, snapping his head back. He then followed up with an armored knee right into the marine's gut that drove the wind from him and sent him to the ground on his knees. A quick chop to the back of the marine's helmet knocked him out.

Fly had whipped out his sidearm and was trying to draw a bead on the turian saboteur. Before he could pull the trigger the turian had cloaked again. Fly panned the pistol left and right, eyes darting back and forth as the corpsman tried to spot the tell-tale shimmer.

The turian uncloaked from behind him and sent a booted foot right into the back of Fly's knee. He then kicked him forward right onto his face, sending the corpsman crashing angrily onto the catwalk. The turian moved over the fallen marine and grabbed his helmet, ramming it into the deck and knocking the last member of my marine team out cold. He had wiped the floor with all four marines in less than fifteen seconds.

A Corpser began to approach Jay's fallen form, scythes clacking against each other and his jaws slavering. A bright red bolt followed by a series of plasma bursts slammed into it, wreathing it in flame and sending it into the deck in a fiery, hissing mess.

"Cloud, I need more time!" Camilla screamed at me. Rentea was crouched over the two unconscious turian security personnel, checking vitals while Jaelen covered her with a Predator pistol taken from one of them. The turian saboteur turned his helmeted head to regard the hapless civilians.

I had already pulled myself up to the catwalk and had begun striding towards the turian saboteur. He stood there among the marines, seemingly unconcerned as I materialized out of nowhere, pistol in hand.

Something else caught the turians attention and he immediately looked off to the side. A bright blue orb—one that I recognized as a sticky grenade— flew towards the fallen marines.

My eyes widened and I immediately raised my hand. Blue fire sprouted from my amp and a wave of blue swept out from my palms, knocking the grenade off course and detonating it harmlessly in the air.

A tall, wrinkled salarian stood on the outer ring of the catwalks, one hand lazily tossing another grenade up and down like a baseball. His skin was crisscrossed with faded pink scars and his black and grey armor had all sorts of grenades attached to them. He smiled wickedly towards me and waved his hand in a mocking wave.

Before I could raise my Predator, an armored form appeared out of nowhere and almost rammed right into him, booster jets flaring. The salarian just barely managed to dodge to the left as Cade slammed right onto the deck in front of him. My friend immediately ripped his Talon from his shoulder sheath and aimed a series of slices towards the torso of the salarian.

Cade was quick but the aged salarian was quicker. He made no attempt to parry, knowing that Cade likely far outstripped him in terms of strength, but instead dodged fluidly around Cade's repeated assault. Seeing that they were both preoccupied I turned my attention back towards the turian saboteur.

He was still standing there, not a single twitch betraying either a hint of nervousness or anticipation at the fight to come. Another Corpser appeared from a vent and began to make its way towards the still unconscious marines but he tore a Carnifex out of his holster and sent a pair of bullets straight into its brainpan.

" _Percival, the saboteurs are here. All the marines are incapacitated but Rentea is giving them medical attention. Camilla's almost done_ ," I reported.

More gunfire erupted below, followed by the tell-tale sound of a biotic detonation. " _Roger that! The Changers are dead but the little guys are flooding the place! Protect Camilla and the marines from those saboteurs, we'll try and hold them off as long as we can!"_ My friend shouted over the channel.

I holstered my Predator and called my biotics to life. My fists and feet were immediately enveloped in crackling blue field that I knew would amplify the force that I could put behind my blows. I could put enough power behind them to break bones, even dent armor plating.

The turian saboteur slowly removed his helmet and clipped it behind his back, revealing pale-white scales and the light-blue clan markings along his cheeks and the bridge of his nose that I'd seen back at the data archives. His eyes were a rare, ruby red, a trait found in only a few select populations, such as human and turian albinos and the occasional rare, Krogan battlemaster. The bright red orbs regarded me impassively, almost nonchalantly.

I removed my helmet as well and gently placed it on the ground behind me. It's narrow, navy-blue visor seemed black in the dull lighting of the engine room, its matte-black surface scratched and pitted. The dark-blue trim around the edges had already started to wear off, I'd have to reapply them after I kicked some turian ass.

Without a word I sprinted towards him and leapt into the air. I tried to bring my glowing blue fist crashing down right where the turian was standing but he had already leapt away. I only succeeded in leaving a large dent in the catwalk. He stood a few feet away, hands loosely held at his side and peering curiously at me.

I ran towards him and let out a biotically-assisted kick towards his head but he dodged that too. I sent a pair of powerful hooks but he slipped underneath them as well.

He jumped backwards to avoid another biotic kick rather than attempting to parry it, causing me to nearly lose my balance. He slipped slightly to the side to avoid another right hook and took a light step back to avoid the glowing, blue fist that I'd thrown in an uppercut.

Suspecting that a heavy, hard-hitting tactic would get me nowhere with the skilled saboteur, I immediately turned my biotics off rather than letting their usage prematurely tire me out.

The turian's brow-plates came together in a slight moment of confusion which was all the time I needed to take a quick step towards him and throw two swift jabs at his chin. The first one hit him hard, sending him reeling back a step, but the second he dodged with a quick step backwards. I let out three rapid kicks to the right side of his torso. He successfully parried the first one but my second went crashing into his side. He managed to dodge my third one.

I quickly moved in again and this time tried to grab his mandibles, shifting tactics again to try and engage him in a grappling fight where my superior strength and size would net me the advantage and put him in a position in which he couldn't dodge my biotics if I called upon them again, but the turian deflected my hands with an armored forearm and retaliated with a quick jab to the top of my forehead, snapping my head back.

Before I could recover, he sent a flurry of strikes directly into my armored chestplate, finishing with a heavy-handed palm strike that sent me stumbling a few feet backwards.

Instead of closing in again, I ripped my Predator from its holster and fired a volley of shots at close range.

The turian, having seen my hand move towards the holster, was able to begin immediately dodging and weaving in place, causing my first two bullets to miss and my last two to glance uselessly off of his kinetic barriers. Instead of re-engaging he activated his Tactical Cloak and faded from view.

Snarling, I stealthed as well. I used the moment's reprieve to glance over at Cade. He was still busy fighting the salarian. I could see the saboteurs mouth moving but was unable to pick out what he was saying to the turian Spectre, but judging from my friend's barred teeth it was likely provocative. Cade swiped again and again to no avail, unable to match the salarian's speed and agility but successful in keeping him pre-occupied and from harming the downed marines.

Meanwhile Camilla was still working on the Drive Core couplers and Rentea had slowly started to bring Private Galen around. Jaelen tried to draw a bead on either the salarian or the turian but had unable to do so given our proximity to his targets, instead choosing to remain a passive onlooker and standing guard over the preoccupied Drive Core technician.

A metallic orb appeared out of nowhere and landed a few meters behind me. I rolled away just as it detonated in a sphere of electricity, but it nonetheless managed to short out my tactical cloak for a few vital moments. The turian was trying to find me.

Another one flew directly at my face but I deflected it with a small biotic field. It landed a few meters ahead of me and went off. This time it not only shorted out my tactical cloak but the turian saboteurs too. He appeared in front of me, light static dancing up and down his black and gold armor. He pulled out a Carnifex with one hand while his other produced what I recognized to be a marine combat knife from his lower back.

Just as I was about to move and re-engage him, a number of things happened.

First off, the whispers came back. Loud and relentless.

I immediately screamed in pain as a sudden spike of pressure assailed my forehead, the assault driving me to my knees. The words were louder than they'd ever been, I could hear what seemed like a thousand voices talking to me in a language I could not understand.

The turian saboteur's eyes widened in confusion and he took a step towards me, but a barrage of gunfire suddenly slammed into his side and sent him stumbling away. He rolled off to the side to avoid the withering hail of bullets and stealthed, fading from view.

I opened one eye painfully and saw the large, armored form of Gunnery Chief Seam Teewin emerge from the stairs that led to the lower levels, his M-76 Revenant blazing away at the area where the turian saboteur had just been moments before. He turned his head towards me and made out as if to say something to me, but I couldn't hear him over the voices.

I saw Accer emerge from the stairwell just as another wave of pressure knocked me flat onto my back and forced me to screw my eyes painfully shut. Through the cacophony of voices I heard shrill, maniacal laughter, likely coming from the salarian.

And just like before, the voices began to go away, the pressure began to diminish. I opened my eyes to see Accer standing above me, one arm held out as if to pull me up. His mouth moved but I couldn't hear or make out anything that he was saying. Dumbly, I raised my arm and grabbed his hand.

A familiar blade came out of nowhere and went through the young Jaeger's arm, right where his upper arm met his elbow. The voices disappeared completely, giving way to a pained, agonized scream. My eyes flew wide open as I watched what seemed like a river of blood pump from the biotic's severed arm. Blue fire flickered around the bloody stump as his amp sparked on and off, confused at the sudden loss of connection with a number of element zero nodes that were found throughout a biotic's body.

His forearm fell to the ground and rolled away, its fingers twitching back and forth. I immediately got up and grabbed him as Accer started going into shock. I looked around, trying to spot either Fly or Rentea and get them to help. Some distance away, I saw that a few of the marines had started reawakening. Rake was helping Soph to her feet while Fly was crouched on all fours, shaking his head. Rentea was still trying to resuscitate the unconscious Sergeant Mardinus. Our medical experts were both preoccupied.

A black-armored figure appeared directly to my left. I watched as she pulled off her helmet and drew a wet, pink tongue down her blade, tasting the blood on it.

"No one gets to touch you but me," Olivia pouted. She flashed a smile at me and winked.

The psychotic doctor immediately began slowly backing away, wagging one finger at me. Teewin moved up and slid an arm beneath the screaming biotic Jaeger. He nodded at me and began helping him stumble towards Fly and Rentea, who were currently trying to resuscitate Jay and Sergeant Mardinus.

Olivia grinned again and flipped her hair back. "I'm glad that bitch of a doctor is dead, now it'll be just you and me, like it always should have been," the psychotic saboteur crooned at me.

"Have you given my offer any more thought? Are you ready to join us?" she said huskily.

With a yell I dashed towards her, tearing both of my Talon combat knives out of their sheaths and aiming a pair of vicious slices towards her face.

She took a step back to dodge the first one and parried the second with her blade. Instead of feinting with one hand and attacking with the other, or calling on my biotics, my anger had taken hold of me in a rare lapse of self-control. I aimed another pair of vicious slashes again, only to have her parry both of them almost effortlessly.

I pressed onwards, maintaining my vicious assault on the female saboteur. The smile never left her face, her eyes glimmering with some sort of twisted, perverse ecstasy as I came at her again and again, my anger making me sloppy, rage robbing me of my tactical sense. Her grin widened as I overextended in my latest attack, my knife whistling harmlessly over her head and forcing me to take an additional step forward as I lost my balance.

Her long, pale monomolecular blade shot out and went right across my left cheek, cutting it open and leaving a thin pale rivulet of blood on her blade. The stinging pain took me slightly out of my blood rage, causing me to gasp as I brought a gloved hand up to the wound. I dodged a follow-up strike, and then another, and unwilling to chance it any further I disengaged. The sight of my blood running lazily down the side of her blade sobered me up even further, allowing me to collect myself.

She took a few steps back and sensually licked her blade again, laughing as she finished.

My hand's balled up into fists and I felt the familiar static charge that followed the activation of my biotic amp wash over me. Blue fire encased me entirely as I prepared to attack again.

But before I could take another step that fire morphed into a stinging, burning pain that seemed to relentlessly take hold of every single one of my nerve endings. I recognized the trademark effects of an Overload discharge. I dropped to my knees as my muscles seized up, rendering me unable to move.

The turian saboteur de-cloaked again, this time beside the crazed saboteur and grabbed hold of her arm.

"Olivia, we have to go. The marines are coming around and the other Spectre's almost back. We can't beat all of them, we've failed," the turian said softly.

The psychotic redhead ripped her arm from the turian's grasp and scowled at him. "Maybe if you'd killed them instead of just incapacitating them they wouldn't be a problem. We haven't failed. If he won't join us then we'll kill him. Then his friends will be easy pickings," she argued.

The turian grabbed her arms again and shook her angrily. "We can't win! We should have listened to Locke in the first place and left. Even if we killed him they have a whole platoon of Alliance Jaegers on board, not to mention the other two Spectres. Their deaths aren't necessary to our mission, this is just about you and your insane obsession," he coldly stated.

Olivia sniffed dismissively and coldly regarded her fellow saboteur. "I never took you for a coward, Severus."

The turian abruptly cast her aside and glared at her. "And I never took you for a complete and utter psychopath, only interested in playing her stupid, silly games. Spirits, have you forgotten the mission?"

The turian and Olivia glared at each other. I could hear heavy, booted footsteps that could only belong to Percival coming up the stairs. I tried to move my fingers but still found them unresponsive.

Finally the turian, Severus, looked away. "Whatever, stay here if you'd like. I'm leaving," he said as he moved towards a door. "Zakiah! It's time to leave!" he called out.

I heard a series of detonations erupt behind me and for a second I feared for the safety of my friends. I watched as the scarred salarian materialized beside the turian and look at me with glee.

"Ah! Locke's little Spectre! Why is he still alive?" he cackled.

The turian didn't look back as he continued towards the exit. "Leave him, our mission here is done."

"But he's helpless—"

"Leave him."

"He could find and hunt us down, he'll stop at nothing to halt our transcen—"

"Now, Zakiah. You too, Flanagan," the young turian spat.

With a scowl the salarian turned to follow the young saboteur. They both faded from view as they activated their tactical cloaks. Olivia looked once more back at her retreating comrades, then over my shoulder to where my friends were rapidly approaching.

Before she turned to leave, the psychotic saboteur reached into her belt and tossed a data stick at my feet with a wink. "If you want to dance again, come find me. I'll be waiting, lover."

Blowing one last kiss, she turned and stealthed, fading from view.

I could hear gunfire and shouting. The shock from the Overload finally began to wear off, allowing me to emit a loud, angry roar.

After a few seconds I stopped. I looked down and gently picked up the data stick. It was your average storage device, the kind you could get a dozen of for about five credits. Usually possessing a capacity for no more than a few files or maybe one or two videos, they were used to create cheap copies of all sorts of electronic materials.

I tucked it into my belt and wearily pulled myself to my feet. My muscles ached in protest, my head weary both from the lack of sleep and the voices that had assaulted me. The time on my omni-tool indicated that it was well into the middle of the night and I was both thirsty and starving from all the biotic use.

Cade and Percival ran up to where I wavered unsteadily on my feet, Cade slipping an arm underneath to support me. I turned to regard my friend, noticing that he had accumulated a few more scars on his once immaculate armor, leaving it completely battered and bruised. Otherwise he looked no worse for wear.

Percival was panting heavily. The armor on his upper arm was torn where a Corpser had probably got off a lucky hit and I couldn't see a single spare heatsink attached to his armor. His tech armor flicked slightly but otherwise I was glad to see that my other best friend was still in one piece.

"Hey, you okay?" Percival asked.

I nodded and grunted an affirmative. "Can you walk?" he asked further, prompting me to nod again.

"Good. Jay's got a bad concussion and Mardinus can't walk straight, but everyone else can move. Fly and Rentea managed to stabilize Accer for now, but unless we can get him to the medical wing and start replacing some of the blood he lost he might be in some serious trouble," Percival reported, "You sure you aren't wounded?" my friend asked me one more time.

I slipped out of Cade's support and took a few shaky steps towards the young biotic Jaeger currently on the other side of the catwalks, slung on-top of his fellow Jaeger's back. His right arm ended almost a foot and a half earlier than his left, and it left a steady trail of blood down Teewin's armor and onto the catwalk. Camilla and Rentea supported an unsteady Sergeant Mardinus as he tottered behind them, the weight of the massive turian straining the two slim women. Jaelen was at the rear with Fly, the two of them holding up Jay, while Soph had the rear guard. Galen and Rake were a level down, firing on foes that I could not see.

"I'm fine" I assured him. I unslung the Valkyrie from my back and checked the charge on it. I had maybe half of my ammunition remaining.

I double checked that my kinetic shield generators, my tactical cloak, and my amp hadn't been adversely affected by the Overload charge. I sighed with relief when I found out that all systems were intact, then proceeded to catch up with the rest of the group. I brought up a gloved hand and traced the bloody line that Olivia had cut across my cheek. When I brought my gloves away, I saw that there was still blood on my fingers.

"You two coming?" I called out behind me. Without waiting for a response I marched away.

My friends shared a glance with each other, wordlessly expressing what concerns they had. We had won, but just barely. The drive core glowed blue and the engines were humming loudly. We hadn't lost a single person to the monsters and although the rogue N7 hadn't made an appearance we'd manage to successfully hold them off and cause them to fail in their objective, whatever it had been.

So why did it feel like we had lost?

The turian saboteur was skilled, moreso than Cade and possibly even me. He was young, but quick and fast, prodigiously well-trained and possessing combat skills that far outstripped anything that I'd ever seen. But instead of letting his salarian accomplice kill the unconscious marines he had stepped in to save their lives. If he had wanted to, he could have easily killed not only the marines from the Excalibur but also the turian marines and the scientists if he'd used a lethal grenade.

The salarian saboteur was crazy, but had managed to fight Cade to almost a complete standstill. He had used his species' strengths to his advantage and to the detriment of the turian Spectre, combating a turian's naturally superior strength and reach with speed and agility. Had Cade not been present, he could have easily killed the rest of my team while Percival and I were preoccupied.

And Olivia. From what I'd seen she was the least skilled of the saboteurs, made remarkable use with her blade but only then due to the fact that she had a tactical cloak. Her combat skills aside, her obviously unstable mind and the unpredictability that her psychotic inclinations lent her actions made her considerably more dangerous than we could ignore. It would have been easy for her to simply stab Accer or I or any one of our friends in the back. Instead she had chosen to play with her food, and Accer had only lost an arm instead of his life.

And once again, the rogue N7 had not been there. If he was the leader of the saboteurs and a graduate from that notoriously prestigious training program, he was most definitely a force to be reckoned with. If he had been there maybe things might have gone down differently. For now, I could only be thankful that he hadn't, and I'd have to assume that I'd have to fight him eventually.

But I was starting to get real tired of these headaches and those voices.

They had nearly cost the life of my friend, and frustratingly it seemed that no one else could hear them nor were they affected by them. They were a handicap, and while things had worked out so far I knew that my luck would run out eventually. They were getting worse and worse, and next time there might not be a Cade or an Accer to save my life. I just wish I knew why I was getting them.

Just one more unanswered question.


	12. Chapter 12 - So I Want To Add A Comma

**Chapter 12 – So I Want To Add A Comma**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0205 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 66F – Enroute to Medical_

 _9 hours and 5 minutes after Outbreak_

"What's his status?" I shouted at Fly.

"Pulse is about 45, BP's reading 80 over 40, it's not looking good," the Corpsman reported, "I've dosed him with a synthstim, the synthetic adrenaline should help buy us some time but it won't last long."

"We'll find better vasoconstrictors once we hit the med labs, not to mention spare blood" Rentea added. She had wrapped the young Jaeger currently draped over Teewin's shoulder in a shimmering blue biotic field that lowered his mass, allowing us to traverse the corridor more rapidly.

Fly quickly glanced at his omni-tool and said "We should hurry, his BP's too low for me to administer any coagulants, he doesn't have much longer."

"Fuck!"

"Get us to the medical wing and I promise you, I will save him!" Rentea shouted.

A Corpser dropped out of the vents above me, eyes glowing and lips curling in an angry snarl. With a wave of my hand I hit it with a small biotic field, throwing it against the wall and giving Cade the opportunity to end it with quick bursts to its head and stomach. A wave of dizziness hit me. I was drawing from my near-depleted store of energy to power what little was left of my biotics now. Anything stronger than a few simple abilities would soon start to eat at my muscle, then my organs, and if I wasn't careful could cause my body to start shutting down.

"Cloud, stop, let me take point!" Cade called out.

I stubbornly shook my head and maintained my pace. Immediately behind me tailed Cade and Camilla, Vindicator and Plasma shotgun out and pointed directly down the corridor ahead. Further back trailed Teewin, who was currently carrying Accer. Rentea and Fly walked on either side, periodically checking on the unconscious Alliance Jaeger.

The human and turian marines struggled behind. Galen staggered under the weight of the veteran turian sergeant and Rake and Soph each had one arm underneath the shoulders of the much shorter Corporal Jaypaul Gaffke. Jay taken a hard blow to the head from the turian saboteur back in the engine room and was likely still concussed. All of the marines had been wounded to some extent, forcing us to adopt a much slower pace than I would like.

Percival covered the rear, medi-gel hastily plastered onto his upper right arm. Fly had used the last of it on both him and Accer, and while it didn't help the young biotic much it returned Percival to some degree of combat readiness.

Percival let loose a few bursts from his Lancer at a couple of pursuing Corpsers. He tore one of his few remaining Inferno grenades and tossed it towards our pursuers. I felt a rush of heat caress my neck as it detonated and destroyed the creatures.

The indicator on my comm. set flashed green. I clicked on the receive button.

" _Spectres, this is Captain Murgen, do you read me?"_

"Roger, we read you five by five. Can you enable the self-destruct yet?" I transmitted.

" _Negative, we can move and we can steer, but we can't activate the self-destruct sequence, the drive core must have been taken too much damage. Is there anything else you can do on your own end?"_ The Alliance Jaeger replied.

"Spirits, you've got to be kidding me," Cade complained.

" _Lo siento,"_ Camilla said miserably.

I cussed angrily at every deity I could think of, then at their mothers as well for good measure.

I turned to Camilla and shot her a reassuring look. "It's not your fault, you did the best you could in the circumstances that we were in."

My words were nothing but empty platitudes judging by the absence of change to the crestfallen look on the drive core technician's face. I sighed and clicked the transmit button again.

"Negative Captain, the engine room has been compromised and we've taken casualties. We're combat ineffective" I replied.

" _Are you in need of medical assistance, Spectre? Give me your location, I can send you some of my men"_

"Negative, we're enroute to the medical wing now. No KIA's but Lieutenant Burton's been badly wounded, half the marines can barely walk."

" _Damn, are you sure?"_

"Yes. Keep your men there, we'll be fine."

A moment of silence fell over the channel. " _Copy. Will you still be able to handle the biology labs and lift the lockdown?"_

I glanced behind me. Cade's mandibles drooped tiredly and one of Camilla's eyes had a slight twitch. Teewin's footsteps had become progressively slower and slower the longer we went on, and the marines all looked like they'd pass out given half the chance. Jaelen and Rentea were in reasonably good condition, but aside from them the only people I could count on to fight were Percival, Cade and I.

I sighed and wearily rubbed the bridge of my nose. "We'll find a way Captain. Keep the rest of the survivor's safe, we'll be back before you know it."

" _Okay, good luck, Spectre. We'll hold down the fort here."_ Murgen finished.

Cade moved up to my position and leaned in close. "Are you sure we can afford to turn down the help? There's no telling what we'll find in the labs" the turian Spectre voiced worriedly.

I turned to my friend and lowered my voice, doing my best to hide my opinion from the rest of the group. "Any team he sends is going to have to go through that gauntlet of freakshows back in the engine room. Chances are the only thing it'll accomplish is weaken the defenses at the bridge and get good men killed."

Cade gave a little sigh and began to speak again. "I know, but if we go into the labs the way we are now, we'll die too"

I looked my friend in the eye. "Trust me Cade, I won't let that happen," I promised.

"You can't go alone either, incase that's what you were intending," Cade pointed out.

"Just trust me. Let's focus on getting to the medical wing first."

The turian gave me a silent, appraising look, then finally consented. Cade dipped his head towards me and pulled his mandibles tight across his jaws in acceptance.

I nodded thankfully and Cade briefly grabbed my upper arm. Up on the wall ahead was a large sign indicating that we were approaching the medical wing. Once we were in there, we could get Accer a much needed blood transfusion and maybe get the marines some real medication. I could also get my hands on a little something to keep me going. At least to keep me going for just for a little while longer.

"We're almost there," I told the rest of the group. There were a couple of grunts of affirmation but apart from that everyone chose to save their breath.

Not wanting to waste another second out in this corridor, I moved into a light run towards the door. When I reached it I nearly palmed the activation button right in half. When the lock indicator pulsed red I nearly had a heart attack. Thinking that it might have been some sort of glitch, I pressed the button again, only to have the lock indicator flash red once more.

Someone had locked the damn thing.

I immediately began pounding on the door with my armored fist.

"Hey, open up!" I called.

Cade moved up beside me and looked at me in confusion. "What's the hold-up?" he asked.

I grunted and punched the door again. "The damn thing is locked!" I spat through tightly clenched teeth.

He tilted his head in confusion. "Locked? Why?"

I began pounding on the door harder and harder. Behind me the rest of the group had caught up, a few of the marines craning their necks to try and see why we had stopped.

"I don't know why, some fucking asshole locked the door1" I hissed.

Cade didn't speak another word, instead opting to pound on the door alongside me.

"Hey! Please, open up! We've got wounded!" he called out.

"Open this fucking door!" I screamed.

Off in the distance I could hear moaning. It seemed to grow louder and louder with each passing second.

"What's the hold-up?" Percival called out from the rear of the group. I heard him slip a new heatsink into his rifle and press the stock against his armored shoulder pad.

Camilla squeezed in between me and Cade and took a knee beside the activation panel. "I can try and see if I can open it from out here!" she said frantically. Camilla produced a knife, pried the panel open and began tugging out a variety of wires and plugging them into her omni-tool.

I slammed my fist into the door as hard I could. On some level I knew it was stupid. I had no idea if anyone was even listening, let alone around to open it. All I knew was that if we couldn't get through soon, those creatures were going to tear our wounded apart.

"If you don't open this door right fucking now my friends are all going to fucking die! And I swear to fucking god that if that happens I will fucking rip your fucking throat out!" I roared.

The door panel finally turned green and they slid open with a hiss to reveal a tall, light-blue asari with white facial markings and a medical patch on her uniform. In one hand she held an M-3 Predator pistol while the other frantically waved at us to come inside.

"Come in, quick! Who is wounded?" she asked.

I shoved Camilla inside then pulled my own Predator pistol from my holster. Cade and I moved to the rear of the group as Teewin brought Accer inside, followed by Rentea and Fly.

"Pricelle, I can't believe you're still alive!" Rentea exclaimed. She ran over to the asari and pulled her in a tight hug that the other asari reciprocated.

"I didn't think I'd see you again, Ren-ren" the asari doctor laughed, "Now come on, that human looks to be in bad shape, we need to get him into theatre as soon as possible."

Galen helped Mardinus stumble through the doors, Rake and his two squadmates close behind. Meanwhile Percival, Cade and I were firing at a couple of Corpser's who were getting too close to comfort.

Rentea pulled away from her fellow doctor and began to update her on Accer's condition. "He's lost a lot of blood, we've applied a bit of medi-gel but were unable to fully stop the bleeding. We gave him a synthstim to slow down the blood loss but he's going to need a transfusion soon, or else he might go into cardiac arrest"

Doctor Pricelle nodded and pulled Rentea with her, following Teewin and Fly as they carried Accer deeper into the medical wing. "Then we don't have much time. Go scrub up while I show one of your friends where we keep the spare blood. Hopefully the cut was clean or else we might need to amputate more of the limb."

"Got it," Rentea nodded. The two asari led the rest of our team away, leaving Percival, Cade, Camilla and I at the door.

We stepped through and Camilla sealed it shut behind us. Beyond the doors we could hear a cacophony of hisses and howls as the Corpsers tried to get in, their claws scrabbling against the thick metal doors.

I turned to the young technician currently sitting tiredly on the floor. "Camilla, can you temporarily weld the doors shut with some omni-gel? I don't want any of those things getting in while we're busy treating our wounded," I asked.

She gamely scrambled to her feet and nodded confidently towards me. "Sure, no problem," she replied. I nodded appreciatively and gently squeezed her shoulder. I knew she was tired, we all were, but we couldn't rest until we've secured the wing.

I turned to my friend next. "Cade, can you stay with her? And after you two are done you go check up on the marines," I told him.

"No problem," the turian nodded. He took position protectively above Camilla as she worked to weld the door shut with her remaining omni-gel.

Percival waved to get my attention then jabbed a finger over his shoulder.

"I'm going to check the perimeter, make sure we're sealed up tight. The three of you should get some rest after the door's sealed, we're going to need it," he suggested.

I shook my head. "Not until Accer's out of the red," I told him.

He sighed and placed a hand on my shoulder. "He's with the doctors now, you have to trust them."

"I'm fine," I assured him, "Once I've checked up on them I'll make sure I'm ready for the labs."

His eyes narrowed at my declaration but otherwise Percival refrained from pressing the issue. He nodded once more and walked away.

"Go, go check up on the Lieutenant, we'll finish here," Cade told me. Camilla looked up as well and voiced her agreement.

Cade held out an arm and I grabbed his wrist in appreciation and nodded to him. Satisfied that they could manage without me, I went to find my friend.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0254 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Medical Bay – Surgery Suite 4 antichamber_

 _9 hours and 54 minutes after Outbreak._

"The young marine is stable, we've managed to stop the bleeding and we're currently performing the blood transfusion now," Pricelle said.

My eyes flew open and I had to steady myself on the table to keep my ass from sliding out of the chair. I hadn't intended to fall asleep, and in most cases there was no reason why I would have, but the toll inflicted by the last ten hours was starting to catch up to me.

I'd gone for longer periods of time, even in combat situations, without an ounce of sleep, sometimes up to 48 hours. But the situation aboard the Hippocrates was like nothing that I'd ever encountered before, not in all my years of serving as a Council Spectre. I was confident that I hadn't hit my limit yet, but I felt deep down that it wasn't far off.

I got up and stood immediately at attention. "When will he wake up?" I asked the asari doctor.

Pricelle checked her omni-tool, then looked up and answered. "We've got him under for now to give him some time to rest. We'll bring him out once the transfusion is complete. Say, another half an hour?"

I nodded. "Sounds good, thank you Doctor."

The light-blue asari smiled at me. "I'm only doing my job."

With that, she walked out of the room. Rentea came in next, her eyes baggy and her scrubs partially covered with the young Jaeger's blood. She yawned, then tore off her scrubs and her gloves and placed them in a biohazard bin before making her way towards me.

"Lieutenant Burton will live, the cut was clean and he should have no problem being fitted with a prosthetic. If we'd thought to recover the arm we might have even been able to re-attach it," Rentea said.

I scratched my jaw and yawned as well. "We were preoccupied at the time, I'm just glad he's going to be okay," I admitted.

Rentea gave me a genuine, sincere smile. The veneer of aloofness that I'd seen her carry the entire time that I'd known her seemed to fade. It had probably just been a self-defense mechanism, triggered by the stress of the situation. Once she was in her element, once there was someone to help, someone to treat, she seemed to change completely. Although her body language marked her as beyond tired, her eyes shone with happiness at the knowledge that the young biotic would be okay.

"Doctor Pricelle Devaris is the chief medical officer aboard the SSV Hippocrates. I've served under her for the last eight years and I've known her for the last eighty. You won't find a better doctor in this quadrant of the galaxy," Rentea promised.

I nodded appreciatively and smiled back at her. "Don't sell yourself short, Doctor T'lana. I'm sure you helped too."

She laughed and waved her hand. "Please, call me Rentea. You should try to at least get a bit of sleep, I imagine we won't be moving on until the Lieutenant and the marines are in the clear. "

"Will do, thanks again for everything," I told her.

She nodded and made for an exit. "No problem, Pricelle and I will be checking on the marines. From the looks of it all of them have concussions to varying degrees, but Sergeant Mardinus might be exhibiting more severe neurological damage from the Arc grenade than expected," she said. With one last smile she left as well.

And with that she left the room, leaving me standing alone.

I looked through the window at the young Alliance Jaeger lying in the surgical theatre. A number of IV's were hooked into his left arm, attached to several bags of blood that were currently suspended above his bed. His eyes were closed but I could see them shift beneath his eyelids. His N7 Hurricane lay on a table to the side, his armor in a bundle off in a corner of the room.

I sighed and pressed a hand against the observation window. He had tried to pull me out of harm's way once the voices had started up, making him a target for the psychotic Olivia Flanagan. I remember the way the light had glinted off the blade as it descended towards its arm, the spray of blood and the agonized scream that followed.

I screwed my eyes shut. I brought my fingers absent-mindedly up to the scar on my left cheek. I touched it lightly, feeling the raised edges that the dried blood had left. My mind went back to the red-headed saboteur that had given it to me, her smile and her laugh, and for a split second a sharp spike of rage tore through my head.

I wasn't going to be able to sleep now. I left the observation room and wandered down one of the corridors, lost in thought. I passed room after room, each one dark and empty. This ship had been bustling with life less than a day ago and now it was as empty as a tomb. Now that I was safe and there were no enemies to fight, I finally noticed exactly just how cold this ship was.

One of the rooms ahead had its lights on. The door was open and I could hear somebody walking around inside. I walked up and paused on the threshold, it was some kind of lounge for doctors and nurses who were off-shift. A few couches lined the walls. There was a mini-kitchen with a refrigerator, a microwave, and a sink. A small table with a few mismatched chairs stood in the center of the room.

Doctor Pricelle Devaris loomed over a hot pot of coffee. I watched as she poured a mug full of the steaming beverage and brought it to her lips, quietly taking a sip and letting out a small sigh of satisfaction. It smelled amazing.

She turned her head towards me, finally noticing my presence. Her white facial markings framed her face like a one of those masks that people used to wear to masquerade balls back in the olden days. Her eyes were a pale green – rare, seeing as asari pupils usually matched their skin tones. She didn't look old, didn't look like she had hit her matron years yet. When it comes to asari lifespans however, that could mean she could be anything from 30 to 300 years old.

"Never seen an asari with a caffeine addiction before?" Pricelle chuckled.

I cleared my throat and crossed my arms against my chest, one shoulder casually against the doorframe. "Not the weirdest thing I've seen," I said airily.

She smiled and waved a hand at the coffee pot. "Want a cup?" she asked.

I stared at her for a moment before nodding in the affirmative. I made my way over to one of the seats at the table while she pulled an extra mug from one of the cabinets and poured me a cup of coffee. I brought my elbows up onto the table, my armor causing slight gouges in the well-worn wood. I accepted the steaming beverage and nodded my thanks, bringing it to my lips and taking a small sip.

I could feel my adenosine receptors cry out in joy as my body welcomed the caffeine. My omni-tool indicated that it was a bit over 3:00 AM, well into the usual sleeping hours. The coffee was a welcome stimulant, it fought back against the tiredness that threatened my mind and began to dissipate the lethargy that had been slowly overcoming my faculties.

I took an even larger sip, wincing slightly as I burned my tongue. Pricelle cocked an eyebrow and gave me a disapproving look.

"Slow down, it's still hot," she said reproachfully.

I made eye contact but took a further sip, reveling in the aroma.

"How did you survive?" I asked.

She looked off to the side for a moment before meeting my gaze again. I could see a bit of sadness creep into her eyes as she called up her memories of the initial stages of the outbreak. To have made it this far aboard the ship was to have survived trauma that would have broken most people.

"I was making my rounds when the first patient was brought in. We had just lost communications with the rest of the ship. She had massive lacerations on her chest, had lost half of her blood, and was on the verge of cardiac arrest," she began. Her eyes misted a bit as the recollection came in full force. A part of me wanted to stop her, but the more I knew the better armed I would be when it came to delivering my findings to the Council.

Pricelle continued on. "She died within minutes of being brought in. Soon after we started getting more and more wounded, each one describing these horrific creatures that were aboard the ship, slaughtering the crew, converting them into these monsters," she shuddered. The mug in her grasp shook as her hands trembled, and I could see a tear roll down her cheek. I grabbed her arm with one hand in a wordless gesture for her to continue.

"They were screaming that we were being attacked. The security officer who was in charge of the medical deck ordered me to stay with the wounded and to manually seal all the doors and entrances, then took his team to try to make it to the Bridge. I was to stay and treat them until they could get back with some answers," Pricelle explained.

"A while after they left, the power went off" she whispered. "Soon after, the first of the wounded started dying. I tried my best but it was just me, I couldn't save them all. I tried and I tried but I just couldn't. I didn't have the medi-gel to handle such a large influx of such terrible wounds. Without power I couldn't run any equipment either. They all died one by one."

She began to cry silently, the kind that was all tears and no noise. Her mug was set aside and forgotten. "Why did this happen?" she croaked.

I bit my lip as I mulled over what I was going to say. "Someone sabotaged the Prometheus Project," I began, "A group of saboteurs were hidden aboard the ship, posing as part of the crew. They did something. When the Prometheus Team activated the Reaper Core, these creatures were created. They started killing the crew and began turning them as well. We don't know why or what their agenda is, we're trying to figure that out."

Her eyes widened at the mention of saboteurs. "Oh god, we did this? We did this to ourselves?" she gasped.

I shook my head and gripped her arm tighter. "No, the majority of the crew were innocent. This wasn't some accident, it was a deliberate act of mass murder. I promise you, I will find them and have them brought to justice."

Pricelle's hands clenched into fists and I could see a small tremor in her shoulders.

"Are there any more survivors? Is there a chance that more of these things could find us and attack us?" she asked.

I shook my head again. "We've set up a strongpoint on the Bridge. Most of the survivors are there now. Cade and Camilla resealed the door, and thankfully all of the air vents in the medical wing are too small for the creatures, so I think we should be safe. Once Accer is stable we'll escort you back to the Bridge, you'll be safe there." I promised.

Pricelle closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank god," she breathed.

I gave her a reassuring smile and made to finish the rest of my coffee. Just as I swallowed the last sip Jaelen walked in. He halted in alarm, eyes wide as he regarded Pricelle. She turned his way and shot him a big smile.

"Jaelen, good to see you! I hope you're doing okay," she greeted him.

Jaelen swallowed and rubbed his hands together. "Yes! Very good, thank you Doctor Devaris, as you know salarians don't require much sleep. I am perfectly fine, thank you for asking," he smiled somewhat awkwardly.

Pricelle let out a tiny, musical laugh. "I'm jealous Jaelen, I feel as if I could collapse any second given half the chance."

Jaelen shot me a look before turning back to the doctor. "Yes, maybe you should try and catch some sleep. Lieutenant Burton is stable and Rentea has already taken care of the marines."

"Ren-ren always was a bit of a mother hen," she chuckled.

Jaelen's head bobbed in agreement. "Yes, quite so. Sorry to intrude, Operative Cloud, but there is something I need to talk about in private. Spectre Kitiarian has managed to ascertain the whereabouts of the remaining saboteurs."

I shot to my feet. "Let's go. Excuse me Doctor Devaris. Thank you for the coffee."

She waved a hand dismissively and smiled at me. "No problem, Cloud."

I nodded and looked to Jaelen. The salarian scientist jerked his head over his shoulder and motioned me to follow. We walked out of the lounge and began making our way down the corridor.

"Where did Cade say the saboteurs were? How did he find out?" I began.

Jaelen looked over his shoulder, back towards the lounge, before looking at me.

"He didn't," he whispered.

My brows knitted in confusion. "What?" I asked, perplexed.

"It was a pretense. Come, Spectre. Something I must show you," the salarian muttered silently.

I sighed as I ran an armored gauntlet through my hair before rubbing my chin. Something told me that I wouldn't like whatever this was about.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0316 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Medical Bay – Morgue_

 _10 hours and 16 minutes after Outbreak._

Jaelen tapped a button and the doors to the Morgue slid open.

The air inside was chilly, befitting the intended use of this room. I could see that nearly every corpse bay was occupied. A row of tarp-covered bodies lay on the floor, against one side of the room. A testament to how many lives had been lost thanks to the actions of the saboteurs. Each of the tarps were bloody, and I could see that many of them had large areas that had been completely soaked through in blood.

The salarian was uncharacteristically silent as he led the way inside. Jaelen made his way over to the closest one and kneeled down beside it. He turned to me and waved a hand, beckoning me over.

I walked over and took a knee beside him. He lifted the edge of the tarp that covered the body, revealing a human male in his mid-to-late thirties. A patch on the side of his coveralls indicated that he was part of the janitorial staff. His stomach had a massive laceration and he had huge stab wounds in his upper pectoral region. His forehead had a small bullet-hole in it.

I studied the body for a few seconds. "Wounds seem consistent with the capabilities of most Corpser variants, Doctor. What's the problem?" I asked.

Jaelen didn't say a word, weird. Instead he moved on to the next one. He grabbed one corner of the tarp and flipped it back. This time it was a male turian, clad in the armor of a security guard. His arm was missing below the elbow and he had massive holes in his stomach from where a Corpser had sunk its claws through his armor. He too had a bullet-hole in the middle of his forehead. Strange, maybe his friends hadn't realized that turians couldn't be converted into Corpsers.

I studied the corpse for a few seconds. "Seems like a Corpser killed this one too. What are you trying to say here, Doctor."

Jaelen stayed quiet again. If you knew anything about salarians, then that in itself should have been the absolute biggest of red flags.

He flipped open a third tarp. This time it was the body of an asari, dressed in the standard medical officer's uniform worn by both Rentea and Pricelle. She had no wounds, no blood on her outfit. Her eyes were rolled back and her mouth was open in a slight grimace. She too had a bullet hole in her forehead.

An icy hand wrapped its frozen fingers around my heart. A chill erupted at the base of my spine and raced down my back. I grabbed the tarp and threw it back even further. The asari had no wounds that indicated that she had been killed by a Corpser.

I moved on to the next one and lifted the tarp as well. Salarian engineer, Corpser wounds, a bullet to the temple. I went to the next and flipped back the tarp. Nurse, human male, no Corpser wounds, bullet to the forehead.

Jaelen finally turned to me. I looked at the salarian doctor, my mouth set in a cold, thin line, trying my best to control the emotions currently raging through my body. My hands twitched and tiny biotic flames sparked on and off between my fingers.

"Spectre," Jaelen finally spoke, "I don't think that the Doctor is who we think she is," he said simply.

I quickly turned on my heel and sprinted out of the morgue, Jaelen close behind.

"Rentea and your fellow Spectres are still with the marines, but I fear that Lieutenant Burton may be in danger!" Jaelen panted.

I didn't both to respond, running as fast as I could back to the surgery suite. When we got there we found that the door was now locked.

My biotics flared to life and blue flames snaked up and down my body. I drew my leg up to my chest and whipped it out straight towards the door.

The door nearly tore in half, flying into the suite and crashing against the opposite wall. I strode in and saw Pricelle standing over Accer, his N7 Hurricane in her hand and pointed at the unconscious marine's head while the other maintained a shimmering biotic barrier that encapsulated the two.

I whipped out my Predator pistol and aimed it at the insane asari while Jaelen had his omni-tool out and in-front of him, ready to unleash an incineration bolt.

"Let him go, Doctor," I said coldly.

"Please, don't make us hurt you" Jaelen pleaded.

She laughed and ignored me. "I'd watch where you're pointing that, Jaelen. You wouldn't want to accidentally hurt your friend here,"

She pressed the barrel of the N7 deeper into Accer's temple. The Lieutenant let out a slight murmur but otherwise stayed unconscious.

"Pricelle, let the Lieutenant go. There is no need for anyone else to die," Jaelen ventured. He lowered his omni-tool and removed the Predator pistol clipped to his belt, placing it on the blood-spattered floor. He looked at me in an attempt to get me to do the same but I kept my eyes and my gun trained on Doctor Devaris.

"Let him go and I'll make it painless," I spat.

Pricelle laughed again and smiled at me. "You don't get it, do you? I'm doing your friend a favor. Do you think he'd want to become one of them? Don't you think he'd rather die first?"

I looked at her in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

She grinned and began to drag the barrel of the SMG from the unconscious marine's forehead and down to his neck, then chest. Her eyes glimmered with a manic light and her voice suddenly became twisted and ugly.

"I was there," she said, "I listened as the came back, bleeding, telling stories of how their friends became these monsters, how they lost their minds and tore apart their fellow crew members". The asari swirled the tip of her stolen gun in tiny circles above the Jaeger's heart.

Jaelen raised both hands. "No Pricelle! Wounds not a method of infection!" The salarian tried to explain, "Infection precipitated by Crawler entry into host's internal systems or through contact with Changer subs-."

I heard a pair of light footsteps behind me. "What's going on? Pricelle, why do you have a gun?" Rentea asked.

Pricelle smiled, all teeth and barred lips. "Ah, Rentea, I'm glad you're here. Just in time."

"Jaelen, Pricelle? What's going on?" Rentea asked in utter confusion. She looked at her fellow doctor with a gun trained on her patient then back at me, my own Predator aimed directly at the crazed asari's head.

"I'm saving you, Rentea. I'm saving us all," Pricelle explained. "Just like I saved those other patients, I did as the voices asked. Thanks to me they'll never turn, they'll never have to witness their friends dying at their own hands, will never have to live as monsters."

My eyes narrowed at the mention of voices. My hand tightened against the grip of my Predator. "What do you mean voices?" I asked.

Pricelle turned to me again. "The voices, they tell me things. They told me that I had to save them, that I had to save them all. They told me that if I didn't everyone would die. That's why I killed them, that's why I shot Jen, Peter, Daric."

Rentea grabbed Jaelen's pistol off the floor and aimed it at Pricelle. Even with her added firepower, we wouldn't be able to penetrate the asari's biotic barrier fast enough, not before she killed the sleeping Jaeger.

The look on Rentea's face was a mixture of betrayal, horror, and like looming like a massive titan above it all - sorrow.

"You killed our friends, you killed the wounded patients… Why?" Rentea whispered.

A look of annoyance marred Pricelle's face. "I told you, Ren-Ren. They would have changed. The voice's told me I had to save them."

A tear rolled down Rentea's cheek, but her eyes lit up with fury. "We're supposed to save lives!" she shrieked at her fellow doctor.

I lowered my gun and took a step towards the deranged asari. "Tell me about the voices, Pricelle," I demanded. Rentea and Jaelen both looked at me in bewilderment, uncertain towards the direction I was trying to take the conversation.

Pricelle's brows knitted in confusion and she lifted the barrel of her stolen gun so that it was no longer trained at Accer, although she maintained her biotic barrier.

Her eyes met mine. "The voices… They come and go. First there's pain, so much pain, then the voices all come at once. After a while you start to listen, you start to hear… They had to die, I had to save them," she stammered.

The hand around my fist clenched even tighter and blood pounded in my ears. For the first time in a long time I felt fear. It wasn't a re-acquaintance that I found pleasant, not in the slightest bit. Would I lose my mind, as she did?

Jaelen grabbed me by the shoulder and jolted me out of my reverie. "Cloud, Doctor Devaris is obviously deranged. Stress of the situation too much for her mind, she snapped, killed her patients and her fellow medical officers".

Pricelle threw her head back and laughed. "Snapped?" she said, amused. "I didn't 'snap', dear Jaelen. On the contrary, I've been given a mission, a direction. I will save us all."

She looked at Rentea and grinned one last time, the barrel of her SMG trained directly at the young Jaeger's head. "Starting with him," she crooned.

Time seemed to stop, as it always seemed to do before certain events played out.

A hand flew up from the bed and grabbed the wrist of the asari. Accer yanked her arm over his chest, removing himself from the immediate path of her gun. He then brought his head up and sank his teeth deep into the crazed doctor's arm.

She screamed and squeezed the trigger of the N7 Hurricane on impulse. The gun clattered loudly and bullets lit up the wall beside the young Jaeger, but Accer was otherwise unharmed. He sank his teeth even deeper, small traces of blueish purple blood appearing around his mouth.

Doctor Pricelle Devaris howled in pain, the hand she was using to hold up her Barrier dropped and went to the aid of her trapped arm. The biotic blue field disappeared.

A quartet of gunshots rang out. Pricelle staggered from the impacts, each one pushing her a step back until she was against the wall of the surgical suite. After the fourth, she slid down the wall like a puppet with its strings cut. The N7 Hurricane fell out of her hands and slid to the ground.

Dark blueish-purple splotches began to form on her medical officer's uniform. Pricelle coughed, spraying her legs with blood. She looked up at Rentea, now standing above her with tears on her face and a look of utter loss, Jaelen's discarded Predator in her hands.

"Why, Prissy? You were the best Doctor I ever knew, you saved so many lives…" she whispered.

Pricelle smiled, her teeth stained blue. It was the smile of someone who one would be hard-pressed to consider human, or asari, or any other sentient species capable of higher level thoughts, empathy, and feeling.

"Ren-ren, you should have helped me, together we could have saved them all," she croaked. She coughed again but her eyes never left Rentea's. Her smile grew even wider as the barrel of Rentea's Predator started to shake.

"Ren-Ren-"

Another gunshot rang out, then another, and another, until it was hard to tell that Doctor Pricelle Devaris had been smiling in the first place. The Predator went clattering to the deck, dropped from limp hands, and Rentea dropped onto the floor with a sob.

Jaelen immediately moved to comfort her. He kissed her on the cheek and then hugged her tightly. The salarian was quiet as Rentea sobbed into his chest.

Accer slid his legs over his bed and staggered to his feet, his one good arm braced against the table beside him. I immediately rushed over and slid a shoulder beneath his stump.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

Accer spat out a bit of asari blood and shook his head. "A whole fuckton of different things, first and foremost being anxiety at the fact that I am unarmed aboard this fucking death-trap of a ship!" he croaked.

I grinned widely at the young Jaeger and began to help him stumble towards his armor.

"Get it, 'unarmed'?" he cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Classic comedy," I chuckled.

He gave me a look of feigned hurt and threw his head back. "Next time I'll just leave you on the ground, clutching your scar and screaming about Voldemort," he scoffed.

"What?"

"Nevermind," he sighed. "You need a less clichéd handicap, brother."

Rentea stood up, Jaelen's arms still wrapped protectively around her. She brushed the tears from her eyes and began to move towards the young Jaeger.

"We should run some tests to determine whether or not you're stable. How are you feeling?" she asked.

Accer smiled at the asari doctor. "I'm good, doc. Just need a hand, and probably some mouthwash," he grinned.

Rentea smiled at the biotic's little joke. "That's good. Honestly I'm surprised you're up on your feet so soon. If you can walk and talk you should be okay for now, maybe even shoot a gun. I wouldn't recommend using your biotics though, you lost a fair portion of your Eezo nodes with the amputation."

I grabbed his microweave undersuit and held it up for him as he slid in one leg at a time.

"Understood," he said, "Honestly, I'm feeling great, no headaches, no dizziness, barely any pain," Accer assured her.

I tied up the left sleeve of his undersuit and helped him clip on his armor plates. Accer tugged on them experimentally, ensuring that they were all properly secured, before pulling out his silenced M-3 Predator pistol and inspecting it for any damage. I grabbed his silenced N7 Hurricane and went to clip it on his back but he shook his head, nodding to me that I should keep it.

"You think I'll be able to fire that thing with one hand?" he asked.

"I think you'll be able to talk those things to death with one hand."

He grinned but simply waved his silenced M-3 Predator at me as I clipped his N7 Hurricane onto my left thigh. Satisfied that his armor was on and he was once again armed, he then turned towards the asari doctor, walked up and hugged her. With one arm of course.

"Thank you, I know how hard it must have been for you," he whispered.

Rentea wrapped both hands lightly around his waist and sniffled. "It was my job. I'm a doctor, I save lives."

They broke apart, Jaelen smiled and patted the young biotic on the shoulder.

"Good to have you back, Lieutenant Burton. Have no fear, know STG scientists who specialize in cloned tissue, can grow you another arm once we're off this ship, or give you advanced robotic replacement if you so choose. Elon series or Stark, both excellent military models," he gushed.

Accer smiled and thanks the salarian scientist. "Oh, I am definitely getting a robotic replacement. I'm going to take slap bets between me and Sean to a whole new level."

Jaelen cocked his head in confusion. "Slap bets?"

"Never mind."

I shook my head and stayed behind as Jaelen and the Jaeger left the room. I glanced back at the still form of former Doctor Pricelle Devaris and sighed.

Rentea looked at the body, then at me.

"She wasn't always like this…" she began.

"I know,"

Rentea grabbed the sheets off of the bed that Accer had been lying in and draped them over the body of the crazed asari, mercifully hiding the ruin of her face and the shattered grin still etched on it. Dark blue splotches immediately began seeping through the sheets.

She then bowed her head and said a prayer underneath her breath. I waited for her to finish, arms crossed tightly across my chest.

"She was one of the best doctors that I ever knew. She saved countless lives and she taught me to do the same,"

Rentea wiped a few tears away with the back of her hand. "She wasn't evil," she insisted strongly.

I stayed silent, my eyes resting on Pricelle's body. Eventually Rentea turned to leave, leaving just her and I.

No, I didn't think she was.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0333 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Medical Bay – Waiting Room_

 _10 hours and 33 minutes after Outbreak._

I walked in to find the marines all crowded around Accer. Teewin had the smaller biotic in a massive bear hug while grins were plastered onto the faces of each member of Rake's team. Verus and Mardinus were also looking happy, the big turian sergeant now thankfully back on his feet and looking much better than he did a short while ago.

Rentea sat on one of the nearby chairs, Jaelen beside her. There was a light smile on her face as she observed the marines' antics but her eyes told a different story. Her hand was tightly entwined with Jaelen's as she sat quietly. Percival, Cade and Camilla all moved towards me.

"She told us what happened. I can't believe it, she saved Accer's life," Camilla started.

"Yeah, she didn't seem the type. I watched as they operated on his arm, she looked like she was trying her best to help him," Percival mused.

Cade yawned and shrugged his mandibles. "This is why I don't date asari," he quipped, prompting Camilla to punch him angrily in the arm.

"Ow!" the turian complained.

"Can you not be so insensitive? She was Rentea's friend," Camilla hissed quietly. She looked back over her shoulder to wear the asari medical specialist was still seated. If she had heard, she gave no indication that she had.

Cade rubbed his arm and gave a look of hurt to the technician. "Did we all miss the part where she snapped, murdered all her patients, and tried to kill Accer too?" he said in bewilderment. Camilla had no good reply to this, choosing to instead punch Cade in the arm once more.

Percival gently put an arm on Camilla's shoulder and lightly pushed her away from her target. "Regardless, Lieutenant Burton, Sergeant Mardinus and Corporal Gaffke are now back on their feet, the threat has been contained, and we need to figure out our next move."

"We still need to deal with the biohazard," Camilla pointed out.

Percival nodded. "Yes. And while they might be on their feet, I don't think we can ask them to fight."

Cade sighed and scratched his fringe. "I don't think you can ask any of them to fight. The human marines look dead on their feet, Doctor T'lana is emotionally compromised and Mardinus can barely walk in a straight line. Galen's barely eighteen, he's good but he doesn't have our stamina."

"So what do we do?" Camilla asked.

Cade shrugged. "I shoot things, I usually leave the planning to Percival or Cloud."

Percival crossed his arms over his chest and looked up expectantly at me. I sighed and rubbed my jaw.

"We send the marines back to the Bridge," I began, "Percival can take Rake and his team, along with Mardinus and Camilla."

"I'm not leaving you guys!" Camilla protested in shock.

"Worried about a certain turian?" Cade joked.

"Hardly, but you're going to need some technical expertise just in case—"

I cut her off with a wave of my hand. "We can manage. Captain Murgen said that the self-destruct is disabled. We need you to get back to the Bridge and figure out another way to destroy the ship" I ordered her.

Camilla paused and carefully considered my words. She knew I was right, I could kick down locked doors in a pinch but I couldn't single-handedly assure the destruction of this ship. Only she could, and that made her a damn sight more important than any of us.

I continued on. "Cade and I will take Jaelen and Rentea, and Private Galen too. Hopefully whatever this biohazard is, it'll require brains and not bullets. We'll handle it then rendezvous with you at the bridge, we can then radio the SSV Excalibur to meet us at one of the hangar bays."

Rentea moved up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. "Excuse me, but I think I should accompany Spectre Percival and the marines back to the bridge. I need to keep a close eye on Lieutenant Burton and Sergeant Mardinus' condition," she suggested.

I pursed my lips and considered it for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Good idea, then we'll just take Jaelen."

The salarian scientist nodded, "Look forward to some good old-fashioned male bonding time," he smiled.

I looked at Percival, seeking his approval for my plan. After a few moments he nodded approvingly at me. The only way we could assure the safety of the group we intended to send back was if one of us went with them. Of the three of us, Percival would be of most use back on the bridge. His old rank would carry more weight with the crew than our status as Spectres and he could begin to organize the evacuation.

"Boys night out," Cade happily sighed. Camilla rolled her eyes.

Percival went to relay my orders to the rest of the group. There was a couple groans of discontent from the marines but most of them were too banged up to argue. Private Galen looked nervously at Percival, then at his sergeant, then finally at me. I nodded reassuringly to him and that seemed to light the young turian up. Cade went up to him and put an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close and ruffling his fringe with his other hand.

He was probably telling him all about the time he did something incredibly awesome and saved everyone around him. Camilla stood a few steps away, the pretty technician had her arms crossed against her chest and looked to be in the middle of another scoff directed towards Cade. Her face was liable to be permanently stuck in that position if she spent any more time with the turian Spectre.

Accer looked up and made eye contact with me. He raised his stump in a mocking caricature of a salute and winked.

I slipped quietly out of the room, back down the hall. The halls were dimly lit and my eyes had to take a moment to adjust to the lack of light.

I passed room after room, each one containing a bed, each one dark and empty. I shivered. The ship was fucking cold.

A sign on the wall indicated that medical storage was to my left, up on the next door. I approached it and palmed the activation button, causing the doors to slide open with a hiss.

The air felt even colder inside. Understandable considering the fact that this room held a variety of different drugs. Shelves lined the walls and filled the room, each filled to the brim with an assortment of different vials and containers. On their labels were trade names that I had never heard of, ingredients that I could barely pronounce. I recognized maybe one in ten, the rest I was completely unfamiliar with.

I moved to the side of the room with the pre-filled syringes. I grabbed one that contained a simple synthetic adrenaline and slid it into my belt. It was relatively harmless, similar in composition to the synthstim carried by Systems Alliance Forces. For a moment Sarah's face flashed in front of my eyes, so real and vivid that I had to look away. I still had her picture in my utility belt, and it was beside it that I placed the syringe.

Next I grabbed one filled with Minagen X9. It was a derivative based off of Minagen X3, an illegal recreational drug used decades ago to enhance biotic powers, highly toxic in large quantities. Since then it had been refined, redesigned for asari use to act as their own analogue to synthetic adrenaline. Minagen X9 was typically used on any asari currently undergoing cardiac arrest. Synthetic adrenaline didn't work on asari physiology, they lacked the same adrenogenic receptors that humans had.

It would jump-start their hearts, with the added side effect of massively boosting their biotic capabilities at the risk of completely short-circuiting their nervous system if they pushed it too hard. Users were instructed not to use their biotics for at least twenty four hours after being administered Minagen X9 specifically for that reason.

I removed my chestplate and uncapped the syringe, jabbing it right through my microweave undersuit and into my chest. I depressed it and shuddered as the substance began to flood my systems. Tiny blue sparks danced around my fingers and I winced as my amp hissed and spat biotic fire. After a moment it stopped and I sighed with relief.

" _Save them all,"_ echoed the words of the dead asari doctor. I shook my head and re-attached my chestplate to my suit. I wavered unsteadily on my feet and had to brace myself against the shelf with one hand. My heart hammered against my rib cage.

I used the shelf to pull me towards a large steel cage. Inside I could see a box labelled "combat stimulants". As the main medical deck for the Systems Alliance Research and Development flagship, I wasn't surprised to discover that they kept their combat stimulants in the same room as their antibiotics, spare blood, synthetic adrenalines and species-specific drugs. Probably in case they were boarded and they had to send wounded soldiers back out to fight.

My hand lit up with blue fire and I ripped the cage open with the same amount of effort I would use to open a bag of chips. I grabbed a pre-prepared syringe. The label was marked with its trade name, some long string of letters forming a word that I could hardly pronounce. It was some kind of amphetamine developed for military use.

I uncapped it and jabbed it in my neck. This time I gave out a light cry of pain as it coursed through my veins. My heart hammered even faster as the combined effects took their toll. It was probably not safe to mix them, but I didn't have the luxury of time. Our little group would be splitting up, our firepower effectively halved. We were all tired, ragged, and if we were going to all survive then I needed to be more than at the top of my game. I had to be at the top of 'the' game.

My limbs felt like they were on fire and my eyes snapped open. I stumbled towards a sink attached to the wall and looked into the mirror. I had the beginning of a rough five-o-cloak shadow, having not had the opportunity to shave since I boarded. My blue eyes were unnaturally wide, my pupils heavily dilated. No one would notice, not in the dim lighting of the corridors.

Olivia's mocking, psychotic laughter rang in my ears.

I gripped the sink tightly, waiting for the immediate effects of the combat stimulant to pass. After a while my heart resumed its normal, albeit slightly elevated rhythm. My hands stopped shaking and I let out a cough. I wasn't tired any more, couldn't feel any fatigue in my limbs at all. I felt as if I could run a marathon, fight a krogan with my bare hands, use my biotics to tear apart a starship.

I wouldn't let anyone else die.


	13. Chapter 13 - Learning Curve

**Chapter 13 – Learning Curve**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0346 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 30A_

 _10 hours and 46 minutes after Outbreak._

Cade raised both of his arms above his head in one of the most elaborate, extra yawns that I had ever seen, the barrel of his Vindicator nearly scraping the top of the ceiling. I remember my mother telling me back on earth that yawning wasn't just a trait specific to humans. Animals of all sorts—our dog, cats, tigers, lions, they yawned too.

And apparently so did alien species.

And it was contagious. Mere moments after, Private Galen Verus yawned into the crook of one arm while the other worked to keep his M-8 Avenger pointed steadily down the corridor we were currently travelling down. Cade snapped his jaws together and sighed happily, scratching the scales on his neck.

He tilted his head towards the salarian padding alongside me. "You tired, Doctor Veers?" he asked him.

Jaelen grinned and shook his head. "No, Spectre Kitiarian. Salarians require at most two hours of sleep a night cycle, a side-effect of rapid metabolism. I am quite alright, thank you. And please, do call me Jaelen. Doctor Veers is my father," the scientist answered.

Cade chuckled and huffed. "I know about the two hours thing, I'm just wondering when you found time for the two hours. And while we're on the subject of names, please call me Cade. Spectre Kitiarian makes it sound like I have a real job."

The salarian's grin vanished like a wisp of smoke on the wind. "The last time I slept was right before the outbreak began. Prefer to do my sleeping right after lunch," Jaelen replied.

"Ah," Cade acknowledged. He didn't say anything after that.

Things were a bit quiet after that, not a single one of us wanted to be reminded of what our lives had been like merely eleven hours ago, at least not while we were still on this ship.

I pressed the stock of the silenced N7 Hurricane Accer had given me deeper into my shoulder and kept walking. Boasting a 40 round magazine and a rate of fire of nearly 925 rounds per minute, the N7 Hurricane was, in my opinion, the best submachine gun ever developed by the Systems Alliance.

It was, also in my opinion, the perfect weapon for close quarters combat. At a length of only 32 centimeters without the silencer attached, it was much shorter than any assault rifle currently in production, yet had a comparable magazine size and an un-bested fire rate. That gave it not only competitive stopping power, but also a much higher degree of maneuverability, albeit at the cost of accuracy at longer ranges.

It possessed much less recoil than the M-9 Tempest, another mainline submachinegun, and didn't rely on the three-round burst function like say, the M-4 Shuriken. It was stylishly designed, rugged, and highly configurable. I'm talking five kinds of telescopic sights, silencers, grips, barrels, you name it.

I am not even going to bother comparing it with shotguns, shotguns sucked.

Private Verus coughed and looked at the salarian. "Jaelen, how old are you exactly?" he asked curiously.

"Why, I will be turning 25 this year," smiled Jaelen.

Verus' eyes went wide with surprise. "25? You're younger than I expected," the turian stammered.

Cade slapped one hand on the young turian's shoulder, making him stumble mid-step. "Salarian lifespans are shorter than most species. The average lifespan is about 40 years, so Jaelen is actually just about middle-aged," my friend explained to the rookie marine.

Jaelen nodded. "Yes, I received by undergraduate degree when I was ten, my masters and my doctoral by the time I was thirteen."

"Hey, I'm 25 as well," Cade pointed out.

The salarian beamed at the Spectre. "Ah yes! We are now partaking in a custom that the humans call 'twinning'," he smiled.

"Huh?"

Private Verus yawned one more time, trying his best to stifle it but failing miserably. I looked back at him and he glanced sheepishly at me. As skilled as he was, he was still just a kid by anyone's standards. He had potential if not the experience, and I would make sure he got that experience.

"Hang on, kid. In a few hours your circadian rhythm should kick in and you'll feel a lot less tired," I told him.

Galen cocked his head in confusion. "My what?" he asked.

"Your internal clock, rookie," Cade clarified.

Jaelen nodded vigorously. "Yes, not an expert in alien chronobiology but am confident that turians possess analogous mechanisms to the human circadian rhythm."

"Um… Okay,"

We continued down the corridor, weapons raised. Jaelen had the M-3 Predator that he had gotten from god knows where while Cade still had his Vindicator and what little ammunition remained, his beloved Meera having ran dry hours ago. My Snakebite was likewise hanging empty on my back, and the N7 Valkyrie I had borrowed had maybe two reloads left before its ammunition block also dried out.

My pistol was fine, and the N7 Hurricane I was holding had a few more reloads in it. Private Verus had borrowed a spared ammunition block from Percival and was ready for action. Hopefully we wouldn't need it once we hit the Biology labs.

"Jaelen, a thought just occurred to me," Cade spoke up, "what if the biohazard is some sort of airborne virus? Won't we need sealed suits?"

"Highly, highly, highlyhighlyhighly doubtful" the salarian assured him.

Cade frowned. "But it's a biology lab," he stated.

"Yes! Mostly work with plants, producing resistant crop strains, that sort of thing. Some work on genetics, some microbiology and even pharmacology, but no viruses, no deadly pathogens, no diseases," Jaelen assured us.

"Besides, illogical to perform such work aboard a large, densely populated ship. That work best done on smaller ships or isolated facilities. Easier to contain, less potential infection vectors. Think Noveria, or perhaps frigate-sized starships," he continued.

"And what if the saboteurs brought something?" Galen asked nervously.

Jaelen smiled at the young turian. "If it had been a virus or pathogen, depending on their lethality, decontamination protocols would have activated. No biology lab left." he said assured him.

"So what would simply trigger a lockdown?" I asked.

Jaelen stopped smiling and turned his gaze to me. "Foreign matter," he said ominously.

Galen swallowed nervously and Cade started tapping on the barrel of his Vindicator. My gloves tightened around the handle and the barrel of my N7 Hurricane. We weren't far from the biology labs now, a couple dozen more meters and we'd soon encounter whatever caused the lockdown.

"Everyone, stop whispering. Be quiet!" I commanded.

"We didn't say anything!" Cade whispered back.

"Yes Spectre, no one said anything," Jaelen assured me.

I internally shrugged and pressed the stock of my N7 Hurricane even deeper into my shoulder. I'd likely find a bruise there the following day, the next time I got a chance to take off my armor. If I got a chance.

The lights in the corridor flickered gently as we approached the door. Standing in stark contrast to the dimly lit corridor was a bright sign on the wall indicating that we had reached the biology labs. The letters were all big and white, the sign clean and shiny. The air around us seemed to instantly take on a murky, soupy quality.

I looked down towards the ground. The deck seemed carpeted in what I could only describe as a sort of putrid, green fog. It was odorless and heavy, judging by the fact that it hung low to the floor, but didn't seem like it would impede our movement.

"What is that?" Galen asked nervously as he eyed the green mist.

"Do not fear, likely a by-product of some of the plants we keep in the labs. Loss of power earlier probable cause," Jaelen assured him.

I turned back to stare at the rest of the group. "Seriously, stop with the whispering."

Cade narrowed his eyes and squinted at my face. "Cloud, your eyes are kind of weird. Your pupils are dilated," he pointed out.

I ignored him and unclipped my helmet from my back and sealed it over my head, hiding my eyes. Behind me Cade and Galen did the same, their helmets sealing with a hiss as their suit began to draw upon their back-up air supplies.

Jaelen pulled what looked like a large, completely transparent rubber bag with a small metallic device on the side from his pocket. He placed it over his head and tapped a few commands into his omni-tool. It suddenly inflated and went rigid with a slight pop. It sealed tight around the collar of his uniform, creating an air-tight environment. The device affixed to the helmet would provide him with some measure of airflow, it was a specialized filter that would recycle any CO2 he exhaled and let filtered oxygen in. Uncomfortable and a bit fragile compared to our helmets, but it would work in a pinch. It was designed for emergency use.

I palmed the activation button and the doors slid open. Immediately a cloud of roiling, thick green gas came billowing out the door.

I stepped inside, weapon raised, my eyes darting from corner to corner. The labs were absolutely filled with the weird, green gas, reaching just above the height of my navel and giving the impression that the room was nothing more than a giant kiddie pool. A kiddie pool filled with green gas, fucking weird.

I could see several lab tables running parallel with each other, and multiple massive glass containers that stretched from the ground to the ceiling. They contained all sorts of different plants and flowers. This part of the biology lab was quite large, with a number of offices dotting the sides and a bunch of doors that led to other parts of the labs.

I couldn't see my boots through the thick, green fog, couldn't even see past my stomach for that matter. If you've ever watched the old Star Wars movies like Cade and Percival made me watch, it's kind of like the swamp Luke finds himself in. The swirling mist above the lake, picture that, but a sickly, putrid green.

I made my way in deeper, weapon sweeping back and forth. Cade and Galen took up positions on either side of me, their weapons covering our flanks while Jaelen took the rear, omnitool and Predator both cautiously raised. The room was very warm, perhaps nearly thirty-two degrees Celsius. I could feel my armor's temperature regulators whine lightly as they shifted to compensate.

The salarian scientist looked around at the gas and smiled. "Ah! Green fog byproduct of plant species _Sporobolis Lasianthus,_ plant found commonly on salarian world of Dagnes. When heated past thirty degrees, plant emits a green fog. Self-defense mechanism, useful for concealing plant from herbivores who are most active during those temperatures."

Cade looked at the green fog swirling around his waist and then back towards the salarian scientist. "Is it toxic?"

"No," Jaelen laughed. "Green color due to chlorophyll. It is darker in this plant."

He pointed at one of the plants in one of the massive glass containers. It was a putrid green, colored exactly the same as the fog.

"Is this what was causing the lockdown?" Private Verus asked.

Jaelen shook his head and frowned. "No, couldn't be. _Sporobolis Lasianthus_ and all metabolic by-products are in database, wouldn't trigger lockdown."

I frowned as well, my eyes darting around the fog. "Keep your helmets on for now, just in case. Jaelen, what's our next step?"

He walked over to a nearby console and booted it up. Jaelen tapped a few buttons and a miniature asari made of purple light appeared over it. It was the lab's Virtual Intelligence, or VI for short.

"Biology lab VI, run diagnostic," he said.

" _Running diagnostic… Lockdown in effect, an unknown lifeform has been detected, please remove,"_ the VI reported.

"What? What lifeform?" Jaelen frowned.

" _Running diagnostic… Lockdown in effect, an unknown lifeform has been detected, please remove,"_ it repeated.

I shivered and looked at Jaelen, who looked back at me in fear.

I caught movement in the corner of my eye, something moving just under the cover of the fog, moving too fast for me to make a positive identification of. I immediately snapped my weapon towards it and fired a burst.

No dice. I kept my weapon trained on the spot and began to advance steadily towards it. Cade and Verus were instantly alert, weapons firmly trained on the point that I was heading towards. I could hear the young rookie begin to pant heavily. Damn this fucking fog.

Suddenly a series of rapid footsteps started up on my left. I turned towards its general direction and fired another quick burst. Whatever it was, it was moving fast. I could see the gas above it move slightly in the direction that it was heading. The slightest hint of a long, jagged tail broke the surface of the gas like the tip of a shark's fin.

Private Verus let out a shout and suddenly he was pulled down into the fog. A few bullets erupted from where he'd been pulled in, followed by grunting and heavy breathing.

"Cade!" I screamed.

My friend immediately triggered his booster jets and launched himself towards the spot that Galen had gone down in.

"Jaelen, vent the room!" I yelled.

The salarian immediately nodded and hunched over the console, typing frantically. I slowly backpedaled towards him, my gun making wide sweeps of the room. I could hear more footsteps, and a soft, insect-like chittering.

"He's okay!" Cade called out. I watched as my friend pulled the young private out of the mist. Galen coughed and hefted his Avenger out of the fog, his head darting back and forth around the room. Cade patted him twice on the shoulder and stood back-to-back with his fellow turian, their weapons covering each other.

"Galen, what was it?" I asked him.

He coughed once more and opened up his radio. "I couldn't see, sir! It grabbed my leg and pulled me down!"

"Eyes sharp. Jaelen, how much longer?"

The salarian didn't cease his typing as he responded. "Not much longer, maybe another two minutes?"

More footsteps again, this time headed directly towards me. I aimed just a tiny bit ahead of the moving green gas and fired a burst. I felt the air knocked out of me as something collided with my stomach and knocked me backwards on my ass right into the fog.

My head spun around as I tried to see what was attacking me, but I couldn't see more than a few centimeters past my face thanks to the fog. I felt a heavy weight on my chest, then got the impression of a pair of snapping pincers trying to punch their way through my helmet. I couldn't make out what it was through the green gas.

"Cloud!" I heard Cade call out.

I kept calm, years of experience kicking in. I raised one hand and grabbed one of the pincers and used my other to pull the Talon from its sheath on my lower back. I immediately began jabbing the space behind the pincers. I felt resistance, indicating that my attacks were most certainly hitting something, but there was no sound to indicate that my target was in any sort of distress or pain.

Something grabbed my leg and began tugging violently at it. A mote of panic creeped into my throat then, but I violently pressed it down, channeling it into anger, then into rage. My amp kicked in and wrapped my leg in biotic blue flames. I ripped it out of whatever had been savaging it and kicked out as hard as I could, the adrenaline and the drugs giving me an abnormal amount of strength.

My leg met resistance again. I felt something crack beneath my armored boot, then a wave of angry chittering washed over me like static.

The weight left my chest as whatever had pounced on me first decided to leave. The tugging at my leg stopped and the chittering withdrew. I grabbed the N7 Hurricane lying beside me and hastily scrambled to my feet. I could see ripples in the green gas again, this time moving away from me. I fired another burst at it but was given no indication that it had hit anything.

Cade and Galen moved towards me, backs close to the wall and rifles trained towards the interior of the room.

"Jaelen, how much longer?" I asked behind me.

"Venting…. Now!" he shouted.

Immediately a small alarm began to pulse and the gas level began to drop. Jaelen turned and took up position beside us, his Predator aimed and ready.

I watched as the gas drop to reveal the serpentine figures of not one, nor two, but four Chimeras. Unlike the larger one that had been following me around the ship, these were much smaller, about twelve feet long from head to the tip of their tails and maybe two and a half feet tall.

Like their older cousin, they were almost completely comprised of the twisted, synthetic flesh of changed organic beings. They had six legs, four thinner ones in the front and two large ones in the back, all made up of jagged, synthetic flesh and terminating in oddly human fingers. Each one had a long, jagged tail roughly six feet long that ended in a cruel barb. Jagged metal spines rose from their backs, armor plating covered their limbs and chest.

Each one had the headplate of a krogan, each one had a pair of pincers that had once been the arms of whatever hapless victim used in its creation, and each one had a small, human mouth between them.

One of them, the largest, was leaking dark blue blood from a series of stab wounds around its neck, obviously the one that had pounced on me. It had a blue headplate. The rest were arranged behind it. One of them crouched on top one of the lab tables, its long, sinuous tail thrashing back and forth above it, his headplate a deep red. Two smaller ones flanked the one with the blue one, their headplates a deep green. Their fingers dug tightly into the ground, their pincers flexing slowly, open and close, open and close.

"One for each of us?" Cade quipped.

I ignored my friend and instead threw my left hand forwards. A massive, rippling purple Singularity flew out of my finger tips and careened straight for the Chimera pack, crackling and humming with biotic power.

They all darted out of the way of my biotic attack, scurrying in four different directions. Cade and Galen both picked the red-plated and one of the green-plated Chimera's respectively and began unloading directly at them. Jaelen squeezed off a few shots from his Predator at the smallest Chimera while I fired my Hurricane at the blue one.

My Singularity slowly expanded, picking up microscopes, pens, papers and even coffee mugs up from the lab benches before exploding and scattering debris all over the room.

The Chimera's were too fast. Any bullets that did connect either glanced off of their armor plating or if they did penetrate, didn't seem to slow them down in the slightest. Cade put burst after burst into the torso of the red Chimera to no effect. Galen had a bit more luck, a few of his rounds blowing off the forelimb of his Chimera. It chittered angrily but otherwise kept running and dashing around.

Jaelen fared the worst, not one of his shots managing to hit his Chimera at all. His role as a scientist and not a soldier proved to his detriment here. The Chimera he was firing weaved in and out of his shots. Jaelen's Predator pistol spat heat as it overheated, putting a halt to his gunfire. Sensing the salarian's vulnerability, the small green Chimera leapt at him, forelimbs outstretched, in an attempt to bring him down.

Blue fire danced between my fingers and I made a throwing motion towards the green Chimera. A crackling blue Warp flew out from my outstretched fingers and collided bodily with the abomination, encasing it in broiling blue flames that began to eat at its synthetic flesh.

It fell to the ground mid-pounce, writhing in pain. It's long, serpentine tail lashed back and forth as it rolled around to try to put out the flames.

Jaelen was quick on the draw, he brought his omni-tool up and fired an Incineration bolt directly at the wounded Chimera. The bright, fiery plasma bolt slammed into the creature, mixing with the drug-enforced Warp fields coating it to create a biotic explosion that tore the creature to bloody chunks. It lay still, headplate smoking, its body completely charred.

The other green Chimera howled, sounding disturbingly human-like, at the demise of its twin. Its preoccupation allowed Galen to pin it in place with gunfire. Cade picked up on the opportunity and triggered a homing grenade before lobbing it towards the Chimera. It flew towards it and detonated in a bright, orange explosion. The explosion tore off its two hind legs, making it easy prey for combined fire from both Cade and Galen.

The red-plated Chimera pounced at Cade. My friend triggered his boosters and propelled himself out of its intended path, landing with a roll into his favourite three-point stance.

Instead of dashing forward again, knife outstretched, Cade whipped out both his Carnifex's and began unloading them mercilessly at the red Chimera. The heavy slugs blew chunks out of the creature. One forelimb was blown off and another lost a hand. Half of its headplate cracked in half. Galen and Jaelen both fired alongside Cade, pouring round after round into the writhing creature.

Eventually it gave up and died, wreathed in a pool of blue, oily blood, bits and pieces of its synthetic flesh scattered in a wide circle around it.

The last Chimera, the blue-plated one, jumped up from where it had been hiding behind a lab table and looked as if it was mournfully regarding the corpses of its brethren. It chittered quietly, the only other noise coming from it being the sound its fingers made as it padded down the table. We all trained our guns on the synthetic abomination.

" _Save us,"_ a voice suddenly whispered in my head.

"What?" I asked.

The barrel of my Hurricane momentarily dipped as I regarded it with confusion. The Chimera seized the moment and pounced towards me, pincers flexing and the human-like fingers on its forelimbs outstretched.

I sprinted towards it and dropped into a slide, sliding beneath the grasp of its outstretched hands. All the while my SMG spat bullets at the underbelly of the beast as I slid underneath it. The rounds tore open the softer flesh of its stomach. Blue, sticky blood fell like rain onto my armor.

It landed amidst the rest of the group. Cade and Jaelen both leapt out of the way. Its snakelike tail whipped towards Galen but he managed to duck underneath it and jump backwards.

I stood up and raised my hand. A Singularity flew out and this time it snagged the creature, my gunfire having wounded and successfully slowed it. It was lifted into the air where it hung, defenseless.

" _Please,"_ the voice whispered again.

I ignored it and brought my hands together, then quickly ripped them apart. The singularity detonated, tearing the blue-plated Chimera into two halves.

Both halves fell onto the deck of the biology lab, blood and entrails and cables spilling forth from the gaping wounds. The lower half twitched and squirmed, its tail thrashing against the floor. The front half of the Chimera began to crawl towards me, its disturbingly human-like fingers scrabbling against the floor as it dragged itself in my direction.

I walked up to it and jammed one boot down onto the nearly-destroyed headplate, holding it in place. I raised my N7 Hurricane and fired a long burst right into its mouth, between the two pincers.

The chittering stopped and it ceased struggling.

The VI flickered back to life. " _Lifeform vital signs no longer detectable, lockdown lifted,"_

Cade and Galen both removed their helmets and let out simultaneous sighs of relief. I glanced at Jaelen who simply shrugged at me. Virtual Intelligences sure had come a long way.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0412 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Biology Lab_

 _11 hours and 12 minutes after Outbreak._

Jaelen removed the medical storage container Rentea had given him held it by the straps and placed it on the table beside him. "I'll need some time to do a full DNA sequencing and tissue scans."

Outside the room, Cade and Galen patrolled the rest of the lab, ensuring that all entry points we're properly secured until we were ready to leave and to make sure that nothing jumped on us while Jaelen scanned all his tissue samples.

"How long?" I asked him.

He fiddled with the knobs on his Illumina Technologies DNA Sequencer and removed the first of the containers from within the medical storage container. Back on the bridge, him Rentea and Barthilus had shown Percival, Cade and I the internal organs of one of the Corpsers.

They had been tinged silver, much like the autopsy photos that the scientists of the Prometheus division had shown me shortly before this whole fiasco started. It implied a link, a common thread, and Jaelen had asked for leave to study acquired tissue samples once we had lifted the lockdown in the biology labs.

We were currently in what I surmised to be his own personal office and workspace. I could see pictures of him and Rentea, and of one more salarian who I knew to be his brother.

The hope was that Jaelen would be able to sequence the DNA genome of these creatures and give us some valuable insight on how they were created, how they bred, how they triggered these horrific changes in their hosts, and how it was linked to the phenomenon back on Earth and by extension the Prometheus project. With the theft of the Prometheus Data by the saboteurs, anything we learned here might be all that we got to bring back to the Citadel Council, and the only thing that could use to contain and fight another outbreak.

He removed container after container from the storage container, each one filled with tissues obtained from Corpser biopsies. A rack of testtubes came out, each filled with a sample of Corpser blood from every single one of the converted species. The DNA sequence beside him hummed quietly as it spun up to full power.

"Hard to say, will depend on the amount of DNA in all the samples, then maybe another ten minutes to download all that data and make multiple copies. Will notify you when finished, Spectre," Jaelen replied.

I nodded and paced around the room. A picture of Jaelen and his brother, Tago, caught my eye. They were standing side by side, Jaelen's arm around his brother's shoulder, both of them beaming at the camera. I gently picked it up and took a closer look.

By the looks of it, Tago was receiving his doctorate. His skin tone was a much darker grey than his brothers, but they shared enough similarities in horn shape and facial structure that I could readily believe that they were biologically related. Two small earrings decorated his left horn.

My mind flashed back to the Containment Airlock where we had encountered the first Chimera. It had been made from the converted flesh of its victims.

I remember its right forelimb. It had once been a salarian, two rings embedded in its left horn the only indication of who it had once been.

I remembered at the time I had been too busy to tell Jaelen in fear of what the knowledge might do to him.

I remember not telling him back at the bridge, once we had met again, and not telling him back at the medical deck once we were finally out of danger from saboteurs and those creatures alike.

I let out a sigh and looked down at the floor.

"Jaelen, about your brother…" I began.

The salarian scientist stopped unpacking the storage container and waved his hand dismissively.

"No need, salarian eyesight sharp, miss very little. Knew, back at the Containment Airlock," he smiled sadly.

I swallowed and raised my gaze to meet his. "I'm sorry, I should have told you."

He brushed away a tear but the smile never left his face. "I understand why you chose to do so. Wanted to spare my feelings. Agree with your decision, your assumption that the knowledge could have left me paralyzed, compromised, unable to survive events that followed. Luckily your fellow Spectre was there to protect us all."

I nodded. I wanted to feel some sort of relief, some sort of lifted burden at his absolution of my sin, but none came. I should have known better. Nothing could ever wash away our actions, good or bad. They stayed with us from the moment we choose to commit them to the moment we die.

Jaelen sniffed long and hard, then let out a sigh. "I will heal in time. Solace found in the knowledge that we will survive to bring this information back to the Council, to ensure that something like this never happens again. Will not bring brother back, but will stop others from suffering the same fate. It is what he would have wanted," he said quietly.

I nodded again. "I'm sorry," I said softly.

Jaelen smiled once more at me. "No apologies needed. Thank you, Cloud."

He returned his attention to the DNA Sequencer. I sighed and walked out of the room.

Cade lounged atop one of the lab tables, Vindicator at his side. He had one leg up on the table while the other swung loosely off the ground. Galen stood beside him, his rifle held in both hands. By the looks of it the two turians were chatting quietly. Unlike his posture a few hours earlier, the younger turian marine no longer slouched nor cowered in the presence of the turian war hero. His stance was tall and proud, his speech smooth and stutter-free. They had now fought together, spilled blood together, the change was almost remarkable.

The glanced towards me and nodded. I nodded in return. I moved further down into the labs, looking for a private room.

I spotted an open office a few meters away and made my way inside, closing the door behind me. Cade and Galen would probably assume that I was taking a quick nap and wouldn't deign to disturb me.

I removed the helmet clipped to my back and placed it on the desk inside. I slumped into a nearby office chair and placed my gun beside it.

I pulled out the data drive that the saboteur, Olivia Flanagan, had given me prior to her departure from the main engine room.

 _If you want to dance again, come find me. I'll be waiting, handsome._

I plugged it into my omni-tool and booted it up. A slightly distorted and grainy video began to play and I quickly lowered the volume.

An attractive, brunette woman in a ridiculously tight white and black catsuit appeared on screen. Her face could have been chiseled from pure marble for all the expression her features seemed to display. Her blue eyes were a bit less intense than mine, her face was somewhat broad and her jawline was quite prominent. I settled in and hoped to God that this wasn't going to evolve into one of those videos I'd had the misfortune of walking in on Cade watching.

" _Entry Log 9, the year is 2191, March 1_ _st_ _, Galactic Calendar"_ the voice began. Whoever the lady was, she had a heavy, distinct accent that sounded like it originated from Earth's Australian continent.

" _My team and I have begun to analyze the Reaper Cores we've pulled from their deactivated starships. We've discovered something truly amazing."_

2191 was less than five years after the Reaper War had ended.

" _We know that each Reaper flagship is formed from genetic material created by captured and converted space-faring species. We surmised that if we were to directly analyze the DNA of the synthetic-organic composite used in the creation of their starships, chances are we can categorize Reaper starships not only via their structural differences, but also by the DNA of the captured species used to create them."_

Was this woman Systems Alliance? That was most certainly not a Systems Alliance uniform. Hell, if it had been, maybe I would have signed up.

" _And we have! Of the seven Reaper Cores we currently possess in this facility, three of them contain identical or near identical DNA. We are currently naming the species used in their creation the Cefaratti, seeing as how there is no way to speculate what the original species might have called itself…"_

" _Three of the other Reaper Cores are created from the DNA of other species that we are currently naming the Sahndori, the Kehldori and the Qualldori."_

The woman on the screen pursed her lips and looked off-camera for a moment before resuming her log.

" _But the seventh, it possessed DNA like we had never seen before, DNA unlike any of the others. In each of the seven cores, much of the DNA of the originator species was heavily infused with what we have firmly identified as Reaper DNA. After the activation of the crucible, this Reaper DNA was, for lack of a better word, rendered "inactive"."_

" _The originator species of the other six cores are also inactive alongside the Reaper DNA. DNA transcription and translation have stopped, but in the seventh…"_

" _Like I said… the DNA of the seventh is unlike anything we've ever seen. It is not inactive, it is not dead, it is alive. It's transcribing and replicating itself, creating new proteins that we don't have the slightest clue as to what they do. The process was slow, almost undetectable at first, but in the last few months we've noticed irrefutable signs of activity and life. We believe that this DNA isn't natural, but rather artificially created and inserted into the genome of the originator species."_

I watched, silent and brooding, as a look of worry descended upon the woman's face.

" _Shepard told me what happened atop the Crucible, told me what really happened. If what she told me was right, then—"_

I bit back a bitter curse as the video suddenly garbled and the sound cut off. As much as I wanted to slap my omni-tool in frustration, I knew that it was the video and not my equipment that was currently malfunctioning.

"— _everywhere. The DNA is alive, we do not currently know what it does, only time will tell. We are currently calling the originator species the—"_

The video ended abruptly and I cursed every single god I knew, their mothers, and their mother;s mother's in sheer frustration at the cliffhanger that it had left me at.

I rewound the video, going over the garbled bits again to ensure that it was the video and not my omni-tool. Satisfied and yet disappointed that it had been the video and not my equipment, I quickly made a copy and stored it in my omni-tool. I sent a back-up file to Cade and Percival, alongside a note detailing roughly its contents alongside a plea for secrecy and an emphasis on the absolute necessity of getting this information back to the Council.

My mouth was set in a grim line as I pondered what I had learned. Someone two decades ago had noticed and discovered something different about a certain subset of Reaper Cores, something involving the DNA of the originator species the Reapers used to create them. Unlike all the other Reaper Cores and the DNA that they contained, this subtype's DNA acted differently. It was still alive.

If I was a betting man, and I wasn't, I would bet that this somehow had something to do with both the phenomenon back on Earth and the outbreak aboard the SSV Hippocrates. Hopefully, Jaelen would discover something with his DNA sequencer that would give us more pieces to the puzzle, but as it stood this video was a vital piece, a keystone so to speak.

My mind went back to Olivia's message. She had given me the data drive containing the video, fully expecting me to watch it, then told me to find her. I rubbed my jaw and tried to deduce the location where that she'd await me. I cursed her for being so damn cryptic, for being so damn crazy, for maiming my friend and for the death of Sarah, but as soon as the anger entered I banished it back. It wouldn't help me one bit, it would only hamper my thought process.

What about the video might give away where she'd be waiting? Australia? Dozens of different possibilities immediately raced through my mind but I discounted them as soon as they occurred to me. She had to be on board the ship still. She might have left, might have somehow boarded a stealthed ship and abandoned the system, but some part of my told me that she was still here, that she was still waiting. She was insane, she was a psychopath. If I wanted to figure out where she was, I'd have to think like her.

I knew where she was.

A loud and rapid knock at the door pulled me out of my musings, the voice of Jaelen pulled me back from whatever dark corners of my mind I had ventured into in my attempt to deduce the location of the insane redhead.

"Cloud, you need to see this."

That's two for two, Jaelen. Two for two.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0421 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Biology Lab_

 _11 hours and 21 minutes after Outbreak._

"See the greyed out sequences?" Jaelen asked. He was holding a data pad with a long string of what I recognized to be DNA sequences displayed in long, small rows.

Cade and Galen stood behind me, both of them straining to peer curiously over my shoulder at the datapad in Jaelen's hands.

"Yes," I answered. Maybe 95% of the sequences were greyed out

"That is the DNA of the original host, one salarian named Mylon Tarrat" Jaelen said.

He then tapped the last 5%, it was subdivided into two colors, red and blue. He tapped the red one first, blowing it up on the datapad.

"That is confirmed Reaper DNA, categorized and archived by nearly every major intelligence agency following the conclusion of the Reaper War —STG, Spectres, Systems Alliance, Asari High Command, every single major body conducted research on destroyed Reaper constructs and managed to mostly identify what is now colloquially known as "Reaper DNA". It is inactive, it doesn't degrade, and no one knows what it does."

"So, are you saying that whatever's causing this isn't Reaper DNA?" Galen postulated.

Jaelen looked at the young turian and shrugged.

"Hard to say. Reaper DNA inactive, not translating, not transcribing, not degrading. Completely inert. Could make assumption that Reaper DNA not responsible, yes," Jaelen replied.

Cade reached around me and tapped a talon on the blue portion. "And what about that last part?" he asked.

Jaelen frowned. "That, Spectres, is what is interesting. These sequences not found in any known genome belonging to any life form we've categorized in this galaxy thus far. It is different, very different. Like DNA, but not like DNA. Altered DNA, perhaps. Do not have the tools I need to examine it for now, need to get off ship, get to lab."

The salarian expanded the blue DNA portion. We were treated to a microscopic recording that Jaelen had made of the DNA in question. I watched as a ribosome slid along the chain, creating new proteins. The process was fast, faster than I would have been led to believe, given my crappy elementary understanding of basic genetics.

"It is creating new proteins, fast," he explained. "I cannot deduce their function in our given situation, but given time and equipment, may be possible. Need to get this off the ship, need to get to a real, real lab," Jaelen emphasized.

"But where did this DNA come from? How did it get mixed up with this Mylon Tarrat's DNA? We assumed that infections were spread from the infected Corpsers onto the non-infected, and that the infection originated from the Changers that were created at ground zero of the outbreak." Cade asked wondered.

"Did you watch the video that I sent you?" I asked my friend.

He looked at me and flapped his mandibles sheepishly. "Just the first few seconds. Thanks by the way, Spirits, I didn't you'd ever be comfortable enough with me to send me a—"

The moment he opened his mouth I began a silent count to three to stop myself from punching the scales right off of him.

"It's not that kind of video," I said coldly.

Cade laughed. "I know, just teasing. I ran an auto-transcript software and read it."

I sighed. "Well then you should know that not every Changer we've encountered was someone who was at ground zero. Those Krogan for example."

Cade cocked his head towards me. "You think that this DNA somehow originated from the Reaper Core then?"

"I do."

Jaelen cleared his throat and tentatively raised his hand. "Ahem, what video are you talking about?" he asked. He looked at Cade, then to me, then back at Cade.

Cade and I shared a long glance with each other. At this point, Jaelen was magnitudes more useful than either of us when it came to understanding and eventually combatting this DNA, the phenomenon on Earth, and any future outbreaks. In his hands, this video could be instrumental in developing a cure, or a way to reverse its effects, or any number of potential applications.

But on the other hand, sharing it with him would significantly increase the chance that it might fall into the improper hands. Granted, the saboteurs were the ones who gave it to me, but I shuddered to think what might happen if the STG or the Asari Commandos got their hands on it. Heads would roll, there would be a possible witch hunt for that woman and the possibility of widespread panic over the fact that the Reaper's left us a little parting gift that could potentially wipe out the galaxy.

It all boiled down to whether we could trust Jaelen.

Cade coughed. "What do you think?" he asked me.

I shrugged. "The usual. Trust them 'til we can't, then shoot 'em".

"You are a complete asshole, I thought Jaelen was our boy."

"You've known me for less than a day," Jaelen pointed out.

I shrugged again and tapped the Predator holstered at my waist, then sent Jaelen a copy of the message I had sent to both Percival and Cade, along with the plea for secrecy. Jaelen ran his own auto-transcript software just like Cade had and quickly scanned through the document. His eyes grew wide as he finished.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked.

Jaelen looked to be in slight shock. His eyes flicked between my face and Cade's. "I… need to get to a lab. I believe they are related, Spectres, and that thought scares me very, very much."

Cade racked the charging handle on his Vindicator and hefted it onto his shoulder. "Well what the hell are we standing around here for then, let's get back to the bridge, then off this ship."

"Agreed," I nodded. "Let's go see if Camilla figured out a way to program the self-destruct. If that doesn't work, we can simply point it towards the nearest star and max the engines."

"Yes," Jaelen agreed. "Destruction of these creatures and containment of this outbreak still a priority."

I moved out of Jaelen's office, my N7 Hurricane in one hand with the barrel pointed up, Cade close behind me. Jaelen came out after him, his medical container with all the samples in one hand and his Predator pistol in the other. We marched out of the office and made for the exit.

"Guys? Wait for me!" Galen called out.


	14. Chapter 14 - All the King's Horses

**Chapter 14 – All the King's Horses**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0429 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 12, Pedestrian Corridor 30A_

 _11 hours and 29 minutes after Outbreak._

My comm. set pinged green as we made our way down the corridor. " _Spectre Operative Cloud, this is Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova, come in,"_ said Val. The helmsman of the SSV Excalibur sounded a bit nervous, and there weren't many things in this galaxy that could unnerve Valeria Fyordinarova, not while she was in the cockpit of her own ship.

I raised a finger and immediately pressed down on my transmit button.

"This is Spectre Cloud, what's the problem Flight Lieutenant?" I replied. Beside me Cade pressed a finger to his own comm. set and tuned in to our channel to listen in.

" _Sensors just picked up something. Ladar painted it as a cruiser-sized vessel coming out of the relay. It's on an approach vector towards the Hippocrates, I think it might be the saboteur's ride off,"_ Val reported.

"Weapons?" I inquired further. It didn't look like the saboteurs intended to go down with the ship after all.

" _They're online and charged. We spotted a mass accelerator, got readings on kinetic barriers and GARDIAN defense lasers…plus what looks like two XM28 Thanix Cannons…"_

That was overkill. Thanix Cannons were essentially the baby brothers of the devastating magnetohydrodynamic weapons that Reaper Capital ships used to sport. They could tear through even a dreadnought's shields and armor plating with just a few seconds of concentrated fire. The XM28 was the latest in the line of Thanix Cannons, integrated into mainline space combat vessels to complement the weaker but faster-firing mass accelerator cannons that most ships had. It could tear a turian dreadnought to pieces with 2.7 seconds of sustained fire.

And it had two. Its Drive Core must be enormous.

Cade tapped on my shoulder with an armored talon, his blue eyes glinting excitedly. "This might be our last chance to reacquire the Prometheus Data!" he whispered.

I nodded to my friend and held up a hand, signaling for Jaelen and Galen to stop.

I pressed down on my transmit button again. "Flight Lieutenant, how long before their ship is within docking range?" I asked.

"… _Navigator Lee thinks maybe twenty-five, thirty minutes tops? One of the Hangar bays just lit up, that might be where they're leaving from."_ Val replied.

"Where?"I asked tersely. My fingers danced on my omni-tool as I quickly sent her a copy of the ship schematics.

She sent the schematic back with the area in question highlighted. I let slip a wry smile. That was less than a hundred meters from our position and only three decks down. " _… Starboard side, Hangar Bay 2-D, there's an entrance on deck 9,"_ Val answered after a few moments of thought.

I shot a glance at Cade and saw that my friend was grinning from mandible to mandible. I gave him a small smile, relishing as much if not more the prospect of getting another chance to kick some sabby ass. In the heat of the moment, I conveniently decided to ignore the fact that the turian – Severus, his name was – had kicked Cade's ass and very nearly kicked mine.

" _Spectre… do you want us to engage?"_ the Flight Lieutenant asked nervously.

That wasn't an option. Ship length and size mattered when it came to both Thanix Cannons and Mass Accelerators Cannons. The increased length and size of the barrel on that ship meant that a larger slug could be propelled at greater velocity than anything the SSV Excalibur could fire. Or handle for that matter. Kinetic barriers were powered by mass effect shield generators, and the bigger the ship the bigger and stronger those tended be.

"Negative, the guns on that thing are too strong, they'll tear you to pieces. Besides, you're our only way off this ship, and I don't fancy having to hijack theirs." I told the helmsman. Or helmswoman.

" _Wow. Thank you."_ Val replied sarcastically.

"No problem, Flight Lieutenant. Keep eyes on that ship, maintain a safe distance and keep us updated. We're going to be initiating evacuation soon and we'll need you in one piece." I said.

"You are such an asshole," Cade scoffed beside me.

" _Copy that, Spectre. And Cloud?"_

"Yes, Flight Lieutenant?"

" _Good luck…"_

"I make my own luck, Flight Lieutenant," I finished dramatically.

I clicked off my channel and turned to the rest of my group.

"I make my own luck," mocked Cade.

I ignored my friend and looked towards Jaelen and Galen. "What kind of party hosts would we be if we didn't see our guests to the door?" I asked. God I was funny.

Cade mournfully pressed the back of one hand to his forehead and moaned. "Spirits, you need to stop."

"Not very good ones?" suggested Galen.

"Wouldn't be polite, we can't have that," quipped Jaelen.

Cade grumbled in discontent and kicked at the ground. "Seriously, you treat her like garbage and she treats you like the second coming of Commander Shepard. I use her hairbrush and kill her hamster and hit on her friends one time and she wants my skin for a handbag. Where did I go wrong?" he lamented.

Jaelen clasped a hand against my friends shoulder. "Not an expert on human relationships, but possibly because she knows Spectre Operative Cloud is using the necessity of extraction as a pretense to keep her out of harm's way, and because Spectre Operative Cloud considered an attractive member of his species," he suggested.

Damn, my asshole puckered a bit after hearing that. God damn it, Jaelen.

"Can we focus up?" I asked, "We have maybe twenty-three minutes before that cruiser gets here and that information is lost forever."

I stared at Cade, then Galen, then finally a Jaelen. "Whatever is on that data drive could mean the difference between one outbreak and a thousand. A thousand lives and a million," I sternly reminded them.

That sobered them up. As one, all three of them looked down towards the deck. Without another word I turned down one of the side corridors and began making my way towards Deck 9, Hangar Bay 2-D. I meant every word I said. Sarah died to obtain that information. Millions might die if we didn't reobtain that information. Billions could die if the saboteurs were allowed to keep that information.

Galen was the first to follow, his rifle held resolutely in his grasp and his face a stony mask of determination. Jaelen soon came around and fell in line, leaving Cade to take the rearguard.

I toggled channels to the private one we Spectres shared and hailed Percival next, to keep him abreast of the developments.

"Percival, this is Cloud, do you copy?" I asked.

" _Cloud, this is Percival, we copy. What's up?"_ My fellow Spectre replied. In the background I could hear weapon's fire and garbled Spanish curses. Damn it, I had sent them back because I didn't want the marines to fight.

"Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova reported that a cruiser-sized ship just dropped out of the relay. She reports that it's heading towards one of the hangar bay and we believe that the saboteurs are there, awaiting evacuation. Are things okay on your end?" I asked with concern. I could hear the gunfire and the howling intensifying over his channel.

" _Just peachy, eta to bridge is about fifteen minutes, remind me never to piss off Cade's girlfriend,"_ Percival replied.

"She's not my girlfriend," Cade flatly stated.

"Copy that, we're moving to intercept the saboteurs and we're going to try and reobtain the Prometheus Data," I told Percival.

" _I thought you said that their combat capabilities outrivaled ours?"_ my friend pointed out.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed off-channel before re-opening the link. "It's our last chance. We've come across new information regarding the outbreak and the phenomenon back on Earth, Percival. We need that information, and at the very least, we cannot let them have it," I resolutely stated.

A few moments of silence, then Percival's voice came through once more.

" _Understood, we'll continue on back to the bridge and figure out a way to destroy the ship, then we'll begin preparations for evac. You guys stay safe, you hear?"_

I smiled. Safe didn't exist on this ship.

"Roger that, Spectre, don't leave without us. Tell Cade's girlfriend that I'll bring her boy home in one piece," I finished.

"She is not my girlfriend," Cade repeated emphatically, pausing after each word like a petulant child as if that would somehow drive his declaration home and spare him from all the jokes that Percival and I were going to make in the coming future.

" _Ha, roger that. Percival out."_

We halted outside an elevator. I stepped aside and gestured for Cade to press the button, which he did rather despondently.

Galen checked the heatsink and ammunition block on his Avenger, while I did the same with both my N7 Hurricane and my N7 Valkyrie. I helped Jaelen checked his, then made sure that his kinetic barrier was in working order before I did the same to mine as well. I tapped on the activation button for my Tactical Cloak, ensuring that it was at one hundred percent functionality and wouldn't decide to up and flake on me. There was no way we could retrieve the data using a full-on frontal assault.

The elevator opened and we stepped inside. We had no idea how many hostiles would be waiting for us in the hangar bay, but it was safe to assume that every surviving saboteur would be there, plus the salarian, the turian, and Locke himself.

"She's not my girlfriend," Cade said miserably.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0448 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 9, Maintenance Corridor 13D – Outside Hangar bay 2-D_

 _11 hours and 48 minutes after Outbreak._

" _I'm moving in now,"_ I radioed.

" _Roger, we'll await your signal, good luck,"_ Cade replied.

I gently slid my fingers through the mesh of the air vent and pushed, popping it out of place.

As quietly as I could, I set it slowly aside and slid out of the vent, then gently replaced the grating once I was free.

The hangar bay currently buzzed with minute sounds of life. The indicator lights on the massive hangar bay doors flashed green, indicating that they were primed and ready to open. A couple of conveyer belts used to carry cargo circled continuously around the room, and several saboteurs conversed quietly with each other as they awaited pick-up.

In the middle of the cavernous room, large enough to dock a dozen fighters, was Locke. The older man was currently typing something on an omni-tool, and by the looks of it he wasn't too pleased. He kept sighing and running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, his brow furrowed and his mouth set in a tight, thin line.

I was some distance away, having just exited a vent situated in a lonely corner of the Hangar bay. The bay itself was at least three decks tall and filled with numerous crates of various sizes. No fighters were docked, but I could see several mechanical loaders strapped to the side. The main entry to the Hangar bay was barricaded shut and several saboteurs had their weapons trained at it.

All in all, plenty of cover.

I crawled from the vent towards a nearby crate, my Tactical Cloak running hot as it worked to keep me hidden. Cade, Jaelen and Galen were up somewhere above, in one of the secondary control rooms for the hangar bay. There they would provide long-range support for me if I was discovered while I did my best to steal the data drive. As much as I wanted to do this completely stealthed, chances are I'd have to take the data drive by force, preferably from Locke's dead fingers.

I peeked my head over the tip of the crate and turned on my helmet's recording cam, ensuring that I got long, lingering footage of each of the main saboteurs. Standing to either side of the rogue N7 were the turian and the salarian. The salarian saboteur wringed his hands like it was a nervous tic, his eyes darted back and forth around the hanger bay in paranoia. The turian had his arms crossed in front of his chest and looked to be leaning casually on his heel, but the small scanning movements he made with his blood-red eyes betrayed just how deceptive his relaxed stance truly.

Interesting to note, Olivia was nowhere to be seen. This further confirmed my suspicion of where she had gone.

"How much longer?" the salarian snapped impatiently. He pulled a trio of grenades from his armor and began juggling them, deftly catching and throwing each one back into the air just in time to catch another.

I wish I still had a few sticky grenades left, if I did I'd just crawl right up to them and blow the fuckers to kingdom come.

Locke looked up from his omni-tool and gave the salarian a reassuring look. "Peace, Zakiah, the Exeter will be here momentarily," the rogue N7 assured him.

The turian turned towards Locke and nodded his head towards his omni-tool. "Are you sure we have everything that we need?" he asked him.

Locke turned back to his omni-tool and tapped a few more commands.

"Mordred says that it should be enough to proceed with phase two. Besides, the situation has become too dangerous for us to stay any longer," he told the turian.

Who the fuck was Mordred? I slipped out from behind the crate while they were talking, using the volume of their voices to mask any sounds that I might make, and moved to hide behind one of the loaders a few meters closer to their position.

"We can stay," the turian offered.

Locke shook his head. "No point, it's been almost twelve hours. We haven't recorded any further changes for the last six, and I doubt that we're going to see any more if we decide to stay."

"This was a pointless side endeavor from the start!" snarled the salarian, Zakiah. "Without the right core their abilities are incomplete, we should have went straight to phase two instead of wasting our time!"

"We had to make sure," Locke pointed out.

"Mordred had to make sure," Zakiah sneered. He deftly plucked a knife from his belt and began juggling that alongside the grenades. "Mordred may think we have all the time in the world, but some of us aren't so fortunate."

Locke patted a pouch on the side of his utility belt. "Don't forget, we also came for the Prometheus Data. This research will save us years of waiting."

Bingo.

I crept towards Locke as quietly as I could, one hand on my knife and the other out in-front of me. With a bit of luck, his kinetic barriers wouldn't do a thing to stop my combat Talon and I could grab the data and re-stealth before his companions could even realize what had occurred.

His back was turned and his attention still on his omni-tool. Both Zakiah and Severus were still standing to either side of them, and although they seemed to be scanning the room they both looked to be lost in their own thoughts.

I was about a meter away when things went horribly wrong.

Tactical Cloaks didn't simply give someone the ability to do whatever the hell they wanted, whenever they wanted, completely undetected. They had weaknesses.

First and foremost was the fact that gunfire and rapid movements tended to disrupt or shut down the cloak. The second was the fact that you weren't completely invisible – lower-grade tactical cloaks made you look like a static, translucent ghost while the higher grade ones left you looking like a barely-perceptible mirage.

Finally, they emitted heat, once again with the lower-grade cloaks emitting higher amounts of heat, and the better ones emitting lower amounts. This meant that thermal optics was highly effective against tactical cloaks, and experienced veterans might very well literally feel you coming. My cloak was top-of the-line.

So when Locke suddenly whirled and threw a powerful roundhouse kick right into my armored chest, breaking my Tactical Cloak and sending me flying onto my back, I immediately knew that things weren't going to go as easy I'd hoped. I cursed at my own naivety. The man was an N7 veteran, did I really think I could just creep up to him, stab him, and be on my merry way with the data?

If he broke one of my ribs, I couldn't feel it, not with the drugs I'd taken back in the medical lab still coursing through my system.

I coughed once before flipping back onto my feet and calling upon my biotics. My amp blazed a brilliant, sapphire blue and flames began racing down my hands.

" _Now?"_ Cade asked.

" _Wait,"_ I quickly instructed my comrades.

My left hand began to move up in preparation to fire off the biggest Singularity I could muster, but before I could complete the gesture a four-fingered hand grabbed my wrist and twisted it to the side, disrupting the physical mnemonics necessary to use my Singularity.

The red eyes and white scales of the turian saboteur appeared inches from my face. Before he could so much as blink, I threw two vicious elbows right into his left mandible, then an armored knee into his stomach.

Severus grunted in pain but stubbornly refused to let go of my left hand, so I grabbed a Talon with my right and drove it straight at his face.

He was forced to let go in order to duck underneath my blade, to avoid having my combat knife embedded halfway through his skull. This gave me the opportunity to cast a quick Throw field with my left hand — just a slight opening of my fingers — that sent him flying back a dozen meters, crashing bodily into a pile of crates.

" _Now?"_ Cade asked.

" _Hold."_

I grabbed my N7 Valkyrie from my back and aimed it towards Locke, but a flying blue orb collided with the barrel of my weapon and began sizzling.

I grunted in annoyance and immediately turned and hurled it at the nearest of the lower-ranked saboteurs, only just now reacting to my sudden appearance. My weapon collided with the man's helmet and knocked him cold, Zakiah's grenade detonating a split second later and reducing the man to a pile of bloody armor. His comrades gave him a look and then immediately began firing their weapons at me.

I effortlessly erected a biotic barrier that stopped their bullets in their tracks. The minagen X9 was working wonders.

Galen's youthful, flanged voice came onto my radio and cried out a warning. " _Cloud, it looks like you're about to have company!"_

In that moment a series of ghastly howls erupted from the front of the hangar bay, near the entrance, causing the hairs on my arms to stand straight up and goosebumps to erupt around my neck.

The saboteur standing at the rear of the group was in the middle of turning towards the newcomers when a massive pair of metal talons went straight into her chest. A human Corpser screamed directly at the faceplate of her helmet, sending goblets of blue oil and blood at its reflective surface. The saboteur weakly grabbed at the rotted synthetic forearm attached to the talons.

It ripped its claws out of her chest, coating her nearest allies in a spray of blood. The saboteur dropped to the ground without a word, dead.

With another swipe it tore her helmet right off and crawled on top of her. Its stomach ripped apart like a garbage bag and suddenly half-a-dozen Crawlers began to scuttle their way up the dead saboteurs torso and force their way into her throat. I shuddered as she began to convulse and her flesh began to twist in and around itself, sprouting metal spines and her very own set of metal talons. With a howl she rose up and joined her fellow Corpsers against her former allies.

Her allies stopped firing at me and began firing at the creatures that now swarmed into the hangar bay. I dropped my barrier and turned my attention back towards the saboteurs.

The turian had recovered and was now standing alongside his fellow saboteurs. He had an M-11 Suppressor pistol in one hand and a combat knife in the other. Locke pulled out a silenced M-5 Phalanx pistol, just like the one Percival had, and had it trained squarely at my chest.

The salarian had a Scorpion heavy pistol, the same one that he had used back at the data archives, also aimed at my chest.

"Your pet Spectre is becoming quite a nuisance, Locke!" Zakiah snarled.

I could see Locke's finger tighten ever so slightly around the trigger. "Son, you don't want to do this."

A human howl of pain momentarily diverted their attention away from me. The rogue N7 then gestured behind me towards his fellow saboteurs currently fighting for their lives against what used to be the ship's crew. "Severus, help them," he ordered.

The turian looked at me, then at Locke, then slowly nodded and ran off to join his comrades.

"Shoot him!" the salarian shrieked, spittle flying from his mouth left eye twitching manically.

Locke didn't move so much as a muscle, didn't so much as say a word. Instead he continued to stare intently at me, pistol raised.

The inaction of his comrade proved too much for the salarian saboteur. Zakiah let out an incoherent scream and fired a volley of shots from his Scorpion. The deceptively-slow moving slugs flew directly towards my face. If they hit me, there'd be nothing left but a charred, sloppy mess.

I dove and rolled beneath them. The volley moved to track me but I was already sprinting away. They landed on the ground and detonated harmlessly, scarring the deck plating but otherwise doing no damage.

A pair of grenades flew at my face but I biotically deflected them aside with a flick of my hand. Locke remained perplexingly motionless as I sprinted towards his fellow saboteur. The salarian snarled in frustration and pulled out a custom M-9 Tempest submachine gun from behind his back.

He fired an extended burst that began to chew through my shields. My kinetic barriers whined piteously and tell-tale blue sparks began to flicker up and down my body as my shields dropped at a precarious rate. The saboteur was using Disruptor ammunition. They would chew through my shields faster than normal rounds.

I wasn't going to give him the opportunity to do so. Before my kinetic barriers could fully deplete I rolled to the side, bringing me out of the way of the bulk of his gunfire.

I threw my left hand forward, throwing a massive, roiling blue ball of biotic power directly at the salarian. With a smirk he mirrored my roll and slipped right under my Warp. It impacted the side of the hangar bay and immediately began eating away at the wall-plating. Within seconds a large portion of the metal wall began to warp and twist. The Minagen X9 didn't just increase the size of my biotic attacks it also increased the damage they were capable of inflicting.

He might have slipped past my first one, but he was unprepared for the second Warp I immediately threw his way. Zakiah sidestepped my next Warp by mere inches, the proximity of the biotic attack causing his kinetic barriers to hiss in protest. The scarred salarian took a brief moment to glance at the impact point of my second Warp, taking a second to note the damage it was currently doing to the massive crate it had hit, before turning back to me and letting out a low growl.

Before he could blink I simultaneously threw two more Warps, one to either side of him. With nowhere to dodge, the salarian was unable to avoid my fifth one. It slammed into his chest and immediately began eating through his kinetic barriers. After a few seconds, his barriers were completely drained and my Warp began eating at his very flesh.

The salarian saboteur fell to the deck with a howl and began writhing in pain and clawing at his face. Before I could finish him off, three gunshots slammed into me from behind. I whirled to see the turian sprinting straight towards me, the barrel of his M-11 Suppressor smoking. He was followed by the last of the surviving saboteurs. Behind them were the bodies of dozens of felled Corpsers. They opened fire at me but I managed to bring up a biotic barrier between me and their gunfire just in time.

"Now, Cade! _"_ I screamed.

A volley of gunfire erupted from higher up in the hangar bay, where my team was currently camped. The turian saboteur's shields whined and then depleted with a crack, allowing a burst from either Cade or Galen to sink deep into his right hip. He stumbled with a grunt of pain but otherwise didn't let up from his sprint towards me. I sank my feet into the deck and prepared to meet his charge.

I grunted in surprise as he ran past me and grabbed the screaming salarian by the collar of his armor and hefted him onto his shoulders. With his wounded comrade in tow, he immediately began running towards the hangar bay doors, the six remaining saboteurs following close behind him.

I raised my Predator pistol and let out a volley of rounds. I blinked in surprise as Locke placed himself between his fellow saboteurs and my pistol, my rounds bouncing harmlessly off of an omni-shield that erupted from his omni-tool gauntlet.

"Let them go, son," he ordered.

"Fuck you," I spat.

I was getting real tired of this guy. The rogue N7 hadn't so much as moved a muscle as I kicked his salarian friend's ass. He had even had a gun trained on me the entire time but hadn't taken a single shot. Back in the data archives he'd done much of the same thing. He just stood by and watched as Cade and I carved through his friends.

The omni-shield he had used to deflect my bullets were commonly employed by N7 Paladin Sentinels during the Reaper War. Experienced users could not only use it as an added layer of protection, but also as an impromptu melee weapon, infusing it with either incendiary, cryo or shock upgrades. Masters of the omni-shield could swap between all three during the heat of combat, adapting to changing needs as a fight progressed.

My hands blazed bright blue as I ran towards the rogue N7. I leapt in the air and simultaneously drew my fist back, throwing a biotically-enhanced punch hit him square in the center of his shield as I landed, sending him reeling backwards.

Before I could follow up with another attack, he swung his shield at me in a vicious underhand strike, the surface of it glowing a bright, electric blue as he did so.

I slipped to the left and managed to dodge it, noticing that a wave of static washed over my HUD as I did so. I aimed a kick at the side of his head but he managed to catch it with his fist and pulled me off balance. I used his hold as an anchor to bring my other leg up towards his face in a twisting kick. He caught my kick on the lip of his omni-shield.

He let go, allowing me to fall to the floor in a crouch. I sprang back up and threw another biotic punch. Milliseconds before I connected, the shield blazed bright red. By then it was too late to stop and my fist went crashing full force into the red-hot surface of his omni-shield.

The impact sent Locke staggering a couple steps backwards towards the hangar bay doors. Steam rose from my armored gauntlet in thin ribbons from burn marks atop each of my knuckles. Pushing the pain to the back of my mind, I sprinted at him again to resume my assault.

A volley of gunfire from either Cade or Galen above above forced Locke to raise his shield to cover himself, giving me an opportunity to strike. I threw another Singularity in an attempt to entrap the saboteur, only for him to roll backwards and leap out of the way. Still he refused to fully fight me, instead choosing to give up ground and staying on the defensive.

It wasn't until the hangar bay doors began to open did I realize what he had been trying to do all along. I stifled a curse as the massive doors opened, revealing the inky backdrop of space. Shimmering mass effect fields outside the ship kept the hangar bay pressurized, preventing us from being vented out into the blackness.

I watched as the side of a massive ship pulled up not fifty meters away from the doors. The cruiser was a dull, gunmetal grey, its shape and profile reminiscent of the typical Systems Alliance cruiser. The words "Exeter" was painted in large, blocky white letters across its side. It bristled with GARDIAN defense lasers all charged and ready to fire. The Systems Alliance Navy emblem and its original name were covered by a massive black piece of metal plating that looked like it had been welded on.

The Exeter's own hangar bay doors opened and a black shuttle the make of which I had never seen before came flying out of it. It made a beeline towards the deck of the Hippocrates and opened up its doors to where the surviving saboteurs had taken up defensive positions behind some crates to await extraction.

I used some of the last of the Minagen X9 in my system to toss a powerful Throw field towards the surviving saboteurs. Several of the saboteurs managed to dive away, the turian and his salarian baggage included, but two of the saboteurs who were either wounded or had been too slow were hit by my biotic field and thrown out of the hangar bay doors into space. They screamed as they were thrown out of the mass effect fields that surrounded the Hippocrates at a speed that made rescue almost impossible.

They would die out there when their oxygen ran out.

Locke cursed and began retreat even faster. With a snarl I sprinted towards the older man with an intent to bring him to the ground.

He swiftly brought his omni-shield across in a powerful, horizontal slash, but I managed to duck underneath it by mere millimeters and at the same time whip out my Predator and unload it into the shield emitter on his omni-tool. The Disruptor ammunition I had loaded into it managed to short-circuit it and fry the device, removing his shield out of the equation.

Locke was fast and retaliated with a vicious right hook right into the side of my helmet. Unfortunately for him, the stimulants running through my veins made his hit feel like nothing more than a cuff behind the ears, despite the fact that I knew that I'd wake up the next morning with a series of wicked bruises along my jaw.

I could hear Cade's voice coming faintly from my helmet radio, " _Cloud, you're in our shot,"_ he said.

"I've got this," I replied.

Locke took the opportunity to kick my Predator out of my hand and then close in and launch a series of palm strikes right into my chestplate, sending me stumbling back. Beyond him I could see that the turian saboteur was busy helping the rest of the survivors onto the shuttle. The salarian was now motionless, his body no longer covered in the blue flames left by my Warp attack.

The turian finished and looked at Locke, who waved him away with a brief hand gesture. Locke turned his attention back to me and aimed a series of vicious kicks to the side of my head. The older man was fast, faster than I gave him credit for.

I deflected them with my armored forearm and tried to counterstrike with a jab of my own, only to have him slip under it with surprising dexterity and speed. He quickly sent a fist crashing into the underside of my jaw that snapped my head back, then followed it up with a series of punches and kicks that left me on my back, wheezing for air.

I flipped around and got to my feet and dove at him again, only for his knee to come straight up at my face. I deflected it with my forearms again only to leave my upper body vulnerable to him. He capitalized on my mistake by driving his forehead right into the bridge of my nose, snapping my head back and covering the front of my armor in my own blood.

Either I was too tired or he was too good, I didn't know. The Minagen X9 had long since worn off and I could feel its aftereffects begin to set in. I wasn't sure if I could beat him, not in a straight up fight. Undaunted, I came at him again. There was more than one way to win. This time I didn't move to attack him. Instead I dove at his belt and tried to grab the data drive containing the Prometheus Data.

He realized what I was attempting to do and shoved me bodily away. He pulled a grenade from his webbing and rolled it between us. I dove backwards just as it detonated, leaving me unharmed, but nonetheless it gave him the space he required to disengage.

"Locke! Let's go!" roared the turian saboteur. He pulled his M-97 Viper out from behind his back and sent a few rounds my way. I rolled out of the way of the first two shots and brought up a small biotic shield just in time to catch the last one.

Locke turned on his heel and began sprinting towards his fellow saboteurs on the dropship. I had failed, there was no way I was going to catch up to him now.

"Cade!" I screamed, "Left pouch! Shoot it!"

A streak of fire came from high above. Whether it was luck, skill, the will of some cosmic deity, or all of the above, with unerring accuracy it pierced the utility pouch that I had pointed out just as Locke stepped aboard the dropship. Cade had shot something the size of a large wallet on a moving target from almost one hundred meters away.

I watched as Locke reached in and fished out the ruined remains of the data drive, briefly inspecting it before tossing the shattered remains away with a bitter curse of frustration. The turian beside him closed his eyes in defeat and looked away. Locke looked up and turned his icy blue gaze onto me. I removed my helmet with one hand at let it fall to the ground.

I smiled through my blood-spattered teeth and grinned at him, my eyes returning his gaze with quiet, equal intensity. If we couldn't have the data, then neither could the damn saboteurs and this fucking Mordred, whoever the hell he was. I hoped that it granted some measure of peace to the souls of all who had died aboard this fucking ship.

"Fantastic shot, Cade," I told my friend before spitting out a wad of blood onto the deck.

The frustration in Locke's eyes slowly faded away to be replaced with pity and sorrow. He looked at me as the shuttle doors began to close and waved a hand in silent farewell.

"You'll understand one day, son," he promised.

With a hiss the shuttle doors sealed shut and its engines flared as it propelled the craft away from the Hippocrates. I watched as it flew into the Exeter's hangar bay and its hangar bay's doors began to close. After they finished, the Exeter's engines began to spin up, tiny blue licks of flame spitting from the massive cylindrical engines attached to the back of the vessel. I watched silently as the cruiser flew off into the murky black distance, out of my reach.

I sighed and pressed a finger down on my comms. set. "Jaelen, can you close the doors?"

" _Need a moment… saboteurs left program running in ship systems, need to reset system."_

I waited in silence for a few minutes. With a loud clang the massive hangar bay doors of the SSV Hippocrates began to seal themselves. I walked over to where my Pistol lay on the ground and picked it up, checking the heatsink and the barrel for damage before sliding it into my holster with another sigh. I wiped away some of the residual blood on my face with the back of my hand and keyed down on my transmitter again.

"Percival, this is Cloud, come in," I began.

" _Cloud, it's Percival, were you successful?"_

I closed my eyes. In that final moment I had been so exuberant, so happy that I'd managed to rob the saboteurs of their prize, my heart alight with joy as I watched Locke toss away the shattered remnants of his data drive in frustration. It had been the sweetest catharsis to all the shit I'd gone through the last twelve hours. Now it was starting to hit me that we had lost the data.

Sure, I had said that if we couldn't retrieve it, then we had to ensure that it was destroyed. But it had been my fault that we couldn't retrieve it. My fault that I hadn't been strong enough or fast enough, even with all those drugs, even with the element of surprise, even with all my experience and skill and whatever talents I possessed. It was my fault.

It was my fault that Sarah died for absolutely fucking nothing.

I frowned and responded to Percival's inquiry. "We were unable to retrieve the data drives. Asset denial was successful, however," I told him.

" _Roger that, casualties?"_

I quickly pulled up my team's bio-scans on my omni-tool. Jaelen, Cade and Galen were all green.

"Negative."

" _Good work, come on back to the bridge. I think we've got a solution."_

"Roger that, Cloud out."

The rest of my team ran up to me. Jaelen's eyes grew wide at the sight of my face and chestplate covered in blood while Galen and Cade moved to cover the rest of the room.

"Spectre, are you wounded? Gunshot? Stab wound?" Jaelen inquired.

I shook my head and waved the salarian away. "Just a few bruises, maybe some whiplash, I'll live."

"What happened?" Cade asked.

"The N7 head-butted me in the fucking face," I replied.

"Ha, I know, I watched it. I just wanted to hear you say it."

"Cade, I will fucking end you."

The turian Spectre spread his arms wide and smirked at me. "You're going to end me after that sweet shot I made?" he asked.

I ignored my friend and placed one hand against one a large crate to steady myself. My head swam with pain as the after-effects of the combat stimulants and the Minagen X9 hit me in full force. When my adrenaline had been pumping, all those hits I took had felt like light taps. Now that I was out of danger, I was starting to ache in every square inch of my body.

Galen nudged the body of one of the nearby fallen saboteurs with his boot. "Sir, what happens now?"

I sighed. "We head back to the bridge and make preparations for its destruction and our evacuation. Nothing more we can do now"

The young turian nodded, although his mandibles twitched slightly in apprehension. He shot me a quizzical look. "Did we win?" Galen asked.

I looked back at him and shrugged.

Did we win? The salarian saboteur was most likely dead, the turian wounded. Less than half a dozen saboteurs had made it off the ship, and the data they had worked so hard for, had killed so many for, was now shattered and useless. I couldn't answer the young turian's question, not truthfully at least.

I couldn't answer him truthfully because I didn't know, I couldn't know. Without knowing what was on that drive, without knowing how it could have affected the plans of this "Mordred" character or the phenomenon on Earth, I couldn't tell him whether or not if we actually won. I just couldn't, I could only answer how I felt, give him my opinion, and that was not something I was too keen on doing right about now.

The scar on my face that Olivia had given me back in the engine room itched and burned.

For absolutely fucking nothing.


	15. Chapter 15 - Double-Edged Sword

**Chapter 15 - Double-Edged Sword**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0509 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 9, Pedestrian Corridor 20F – Outside Hangar bay 2-D_

 _12 hours and 09 minutes after Outbreak._

Cade pointed at the line of bruises that had begun to discolor my jaw. "Looks like the old man really did a number on you," he gaffed. "You don't look too good."

I raised my helmet and slipped it on. It sealed with a hiss, hiding the purple splotches alongside my jaw and my bloodshot eyes from his penetrating glare. "I'll live," I replied.

Cade crossed his arms against his chest and tapped a gloved talon on his armored rerebrace. His mandibles were drawn tight across his jaw and he had what might have been a look of consternation plastered on his own plated face.

"You know, there hasn't been many times where I've seen you throw so many successive Warps…"

The turian Spectre's light-blue eyes narrowed suspiciously at me, boring through the navy-blue visor of my helmet and into my eyes. I physically turned, averted my gaze and looked away but Cade refused to let it go. He stared relentlessly at me, his look of consternation growing stronger and stronger. I looked at the charge of my kinetic barriers, expecting them to dip any moment under my friend's ruthless scrutiny.

Cade grabbed my shoulder and spun me towards him, his mandibles now flaring outwards in anger.

"What did you take?" he asked accusingly. "As far as biotics go you're no slouch, but I've never seen anyone but asari matriarchs or their veteran commandos use biotics like that."

I tried to rip my shoulder out of his grasp but my friend's grip might as well have been a vise clamp. Galen and Jaelen both stood a few feet away, maintaining a minimum safe distance and silently observing our little spat with more than a hint of nervousness.

Cade refused to let it go. He moved closer and grabbed both my shoulders again, his face a couple of inches from my helmet. I was close enough that I could hear his native language behind the universal translators we all had installed.

"Was it Minagen X9?"

My silence was all the answer that he needed. Like a candle before an open window his anger blew out. He let go, wearily shook his head and sighed.

"This isn't the second time, Spirits, it isn't even the third, or the fourth," he said dejectedly.

The urge to defend my decisions and my actions began to bloom within my chest. "I didn't have a choice. We were outnumbered and possibly up against the most skilled of the saboteurs, we needed every advantage we could get," I tried to explain.

Cade didn't buy it, instead he squeezed my shoulder even harder, seeking an outlet for his frustration that wouldn't involve shooting me in the kneecaps or punching me in the face. His talons dug slightly into my pauldron, carving light grooves in the matte-black plating.

"We did have a choice! We could have both gone down together and flanked them! You didn't need to go down by yourself, you just insisted!" Cade said angrily.

"You use that excuse every time we're in a situation like that!" He continued. "You always think that there's no other way, that you need to do something either incredibly insane or incredibly harmful to yourself to win. Well I'm telling you, you're wrong, you damned monkey!."

Jaelen coughed and sheepishly raised a hand, as if to seek permission to speak. "Minagen X9 waste products not properly metabolized in humans, will accumulate over time unless surgery is performed. Also, overdose and overuse of biotics under its effects may lead to destruction of the central nervous system, but keep in mind, so can accumulation of these waste products."

I already knew all that. Minagen X9 was metabolized into Meritaldehyde or something like that. Humans can't excrete or metabolize it, so every time you used Minagen X9, the amount of Meritaldehyde in your body would accumulate. Side effects of a high concentration of the metabolite included headaches, memory loss, hallucinations, loss of motor function, and eventually death as your nervous system was destroyed piecemeal.

Asari could metabolize it no problem, but for every other species we had to be extremely careful in its use. I'd used it four times in my life, and while I hadn't developed any side effects yet, that in itself was no indication of whether or not I was hitting that lethal concentration. The concentration of Meritaldehyde necessary to produce those side effects wasn't far off from the concentration needed to fully destroy your nervous system. By the time I felt those side effects, the destruction of my nervous system was likely not that far off. It was like Alzheimers, Microencephaly, and the Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease rolled up in one convenient, deadly package.

Oh, and did I mention that there wasn't a firmly established LD50? The tolerance varied from individual to individual. Some people could handle several hundred ppm, others several thousand, and a few unlucky ones burned out at a couple dozen.

Treatment was a complex, dangerous, and highly experimental surgery that involved cleaning your nervous system, for lack of a better description. The asari had never put much stock into developing such treatments, seeing as they could metabolize Meritaldehyde, so most of the research was done by salarian, human, and turian joint initiatives. Given the relative youth of Minagen abuse, the science behind it was still young and therefore not totally conclusive.

My best friend waved a hand at our salarian scientist and looked angrily back at me. "See? Jaelen knows what he's talking about, and even I know that every time you use Minagen X9, you're rolling the dice."

I sighed and gently grabbed Cade's wrists and removed his hands from my shoulders.

"I'm sorry, okay?" I began, "We didn't have enough time, Val said that their ship was en-route to extract them and we had barely twenty minutes to work with."

I could see my friend's gaze begin soften at my apology. As far as hot-headed individuals went, Cade was surprisingly easy to talk down, provided you kept your head. The intensity of his glare dialed down and his mandibles started to relax.

"Besides, I needed you to cover Jaelen and the rookie in case things went south up there. It's one thing to use your booster jets to jump down to assist me, but getting back up to assist them? That wouldn't have been possible."

Cade nodded and conceded that fact. It was something I had come up with on the spot, but he ate it up nonetheless.

"I'll go see a doctor once were back on the Citadel, do a full scan, I promise. I'll even have Jaelen do it," I assured him.

This seemed to mollify the turian Spectre. He nodded again and stepped back, obviously willing to temporarily put this aside so that we could refocus on the mission. My friend unsling his Vindicator Battle Rifle from his armor and powering it up.

I grabbed Accer's N7 Hurricane from my back and powered it on. Zakiah the salarian saboteur had destroyed my borrowed N7 Valkyrie with a grenade in the last fight, leaving me with just my pistol and the submachine gun and seriously crippling my long-range capabilities. I was down to my last reload on my Hurricane, and my pistol had maybe two reloads left before its ammunition block also ran dry. I could still use my biotics, but likely not for much longer and not with the same power and intensity that I had done so under the influence of Minagen X9.

After my weapons ran out, I'd be down to my Talon knives.

Cade checked the ammunition block in his Vindicator and gave a slight hiss. "I've literally got three bursts left."

He powered off his Vindicator and slung it beside Meera. With a wide grin he unholstered both of his Carnifex pistols, powered them on, and began to make pretend shooting noises out his mouth, fake-firing his pistols at imaginary enemies.

Our other two companions had relaxed now that the storm between me and Cade had passed, returning them to relatively decent spirits. Jaelen cocked an eyebrow and gave my friend's antics an amused grin. "Very movie star-esque. Looking forward to your next film."

Cade pantomimed firing a pair of shots, then whirled and fired another pair at some target only he could see. "I'll talk to my agent, see if he can land me a role in the next Blasto movie."

The scientist's eyes grew wide. "Blasto 15?"

My friend deftly twirled both Carnifex's before putting them back in their holsters. "16. 15 was Blasto: Citadel Royale," Cade replied.

"Ah, very much liked the new hanar they casted as Blasto, previous one much too talkative, too comedic, give me a silent, cold, ruthless Blasto any day," Jaelen nodded.

Cade nodded enthusiastically and slipped an arm around the salarian scientist, pulling him close. "Agreed! I think the fact that the hanar was a lighter shade of pink than every other previous Blasto doesn't diminish his on-screen presence in any way."

"Yes! In my opinion his mannerisms and his character habits are most in-line with the original Blasto from the first film. Blasto needs to be cold, calm, collected, not cracking jokes and making quips."

"Enkindle this, cue point-blank headshot, not enkindle THIS, cue comedic moment!" Cade crowed. Jaelen laughed and nodded in agreement.

The pair continued their little back and forth on the relative strength and merits of the latest Blasto actor compared to all the previous ones. Personally I preferred the latest iteration of the beloved film character as well. The stories might have been bad, but the actor was definitely top notch.

I turned my head to check on Galen. The young turian marine was also busy checking the remaining ammunition left in his Avenger.

Whatever was left must not have been good, because he slipped the Avenger onto his back with a small sigh and pulled out a standard-issue Predator pistol.

"Sir, we're running on fumes here. If we run into serious trouble we're not going to be able to shoot our way out."

"Agreed, Private. You have a plan?" I asked him.

Galen moved up beside me and pulled up a schematic on his omni-tool. With a tap of his finger he highlighted a portion of the ship not forty meters away from our current position, between us and the bridge. He brought his thumb and his forefinger together at the spot, then spread them apart, further magnifying the location he had highlighted.

Armory 2-D.

I removed my helmet and peered at the location with great interest. I looked towards Galen and grinned at him. The marine nervously grinned back.

"The hangar bays are the most likely ingress point for any boarding force, so the SSV Hippocrates was designed so that an armory would be situated near each hangar bay to allow crewmembers to arm themselves and form a quick reaction force in the event of a boarding," he explained.

He pulled up a list and sent it to me. I opened it on my omni-tool and scanned through it. It was an inventory list of weapons and equipment. The majority of the items were pretty standard-issue—items such as M-8 Avengers, M-3 Predators, M-23 Katana's, and frag grenades—but on a separate list beneath the main list was a shorter, much more appealing one.

"They have Black Widow Sniper Rifles aboard a god-damn ship?" I asked in disbelief.

Galen nodded. "The Hippocrates is over a kilometer long, the hangar bays themselves are nearly eighty meters long and the ship's central passageway is nearly eight hundred. There's more than a few places where you could put these babies to good use, and I'm betting their ammunition blocks are compatible with your Snakebite."

My Sniper Rifle had been hanging unloved and unused on my back for what must have been the last eight or nine chapters. It was about time to change that.

One little snag.

"It says here that access to this inventory is restricted, we can't get through that door without heavy explosives," I pointed out.

Galen's mandibles splayed out in an even wider turian grin. He pulled a key card from a utility pouch and twirled it between his fingers.

"One of the saboteurs we killed back in the machine room was actually the marine lieutenant in charge of the platoon that Sergeant Mardinus and I are attached to, I recognized some of the personal effects he had attached to his armor. I grabbed this off of him just in case we needed to stock up on some extra firepower."

I chuckled. "Good man, I hope you weren't too attached to him."

Galen shook his head and snorted. "He was an asshole."

"I thought you turians were all about duty and loyalty to your commanding officers," I pointed out.

The young private snorted again. " _Turian_ commanding officers, maybe. Human officers are a whole other beast. Maybe it's because he was the first commanding officer I've ever had, or maybe it's because I've barely got the scales to cover my balls, but he didn't strike me as a model officer, the kind that the textbooks teach us that we should die for. He never listened to us, never gave a damn about us. He'd dismiss our concerns and ignored how we felt about his orders or the way he decided to run things."

He flapped his mandibles in a turian equivalent of a sigh and dipped his head down.

"Sergeant Mardinus and a couple of the more experienced turian marines in our platoon had no problems following Lieutenant Hackman's every order like he was sent by the Spirits themselves, but a part of me always got the feeling that he didn't care for us. It made obeying him difficult."

Galen looked away, his brow-plates came together and hinted at the turmoil within the young private's head.

"I want to be a good turian. My father was a merchant sailor and my mother a teacher, they did their mandatory civilian service but never wanted to rise any higher than the rank of citizen in the meritocracy. I want to be everything that they could never be, I want to fight for what is right on a dozen different worlds, I want to earn the respect of my commanding officer and my fellow turians, I want to make a difference in the galaxy."

"But If I can't even do something as simple as respecting my commanding officer, I have no idea how I'll manage all of that," he finished.

Galen's shoulders slumped forward. He deactivated the map on his omni-tool and sighed.

I looked towards Cade and Jaelen, both still loudly engrossed in an animated conversation about the latest Blasto films, the advantages of the new M-6 Carnifex, and whether or not human or asari women were more attractive.

I placed a hand gently on the young marine's shoulder and dropped my voice so that we wouldn't be overheard. I wasn't good at this. Give me a target or an objective and I was the Michaelangelo of Spectres in my opinion, but when it came to something as simple as speaking what was truly on my mind about a specific subject, I was hopeless.

Galen reacted to my hand on his shoulder and looked up at me. His green eyes contrasted with the red clan markings on his dark grey skin. Unlike most mature turians, his plates still looked soft and thin, uncracked and unweathered. He was barely a mature adult by his species' standards. Just a boy.

I had only known the young turian for half a day, and if I were to compare who he was now to who he was twelve hours ago, I would be hard-pressed to say that they were one and the same. I remembered Mardinus' introduction of him back at the bridge, how he had stuttered and hero-worshipped Cade, Percival and I.

I looked at him now. He didn't stutter anymore, had fighting skills that amazed even me, had the tactical and strategic sense to grab the keycard and point out the armory, and above all, displayed a drive to do something meaningful and good with his life, beyond the standard call of duty. And he wasn't even eighteen yet.

I cleared my throat and began to speak. "Hey, whatever doubts you may have about yourself, I think that you're on the right path."

His brow-plates and his mandibles relaxed ever so slightly at my words, giving me the encouragement I needed to press on with my awkwardly-worded inspirational speech.

"If there is one thing that I've come to realize during my time as a Spectre, it's that at the end of the day, there is always another way to realize your goals," I began.

"We humans have a saying, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. I think that there is truth in that saying, truth that is applicable to your life right now."

"Just because you don't fit the mold of a model turian like Mardinus or Barthilus doesn't mean you can't become something great. The fact that your parents weren't high ranking military officers or high up on the meritocracy tier list doesn't matter worth a damn either."

"I've seen a lot that this galaxy has to offer, I've worked with a lot of different soldiers, politicians, civilians, doctors, scientists, what have you. Out of all of them, the one thing I've noticed that separates the exceptional from the mundane is that drive to become something great. It didn't matter where they started from, or what their personalities or tendencies or habits were like. As long as that drive is there, as long as they nurtured it and let it guide them without fear, they will become something great."

Galen's eyes look into mine and for a brief moment I saw what a more sentimental man might have mistaken for hope. His mandibles closed and opened repeatedly as he carefully considered what I had to say.

"I see that drive in Cade, in Percival, in Accer and Teewin and Camilla," I continued. "But above all, I see that drive in you, as strong as a star and as clear as day, stronger than in any of us."

I removed my hand and lightly punched the younger turian in the arm. "I expect great things from you, Private Galen Verus," I finished.

Galen hastily brushed away a few tears on the back of his armored gauntlet and nodded resolutely at me. "Thank you, sir. I won't let you down," he promised.

"I know. Now go tell Cade and Jaelen about the armory. We're going to need the extra firepower not just to fight our way to the bridge, but to fight our way back to one of the hangar bays for extraction. Have Cade radio Captain Murgen and Percival, ask them what they need."

Galen nodded. "You've got it, Sir."

He saluted and jogged up to where Cade and Jaelen were currently conversing. I watched as he pulled up the map on his omni-tool and began to recount what he had told me regarding the armory and its contents.

I had meant every word that I said to the young marine, specifically the part about that drive needing to be nurtured. He was young, and although the events aboard this ship had been a test of monumental proportions it would be likely be the first in a long line of tests, each one capable of crushing that drive, of crushing his spirit.

The galaxy needed more stars like Galen. Many young hopefuls started their lives with that same drive, only for life's tests to stomp it into the ground and snuff it out. Every life was capable of such potential, but there were many things in the galaxy that were capable of crushing it. I was determined to not let that happen with Galen. He had the potential to become something truly great.

I wasn't very good at these things. I just said what I thought my mother would have said to the young turian.

Up ahead, I caught the words "Black Widow", followed by a very high-pitched, almost girly squeal of delight.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0526 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 9, Pedestrian Corridor 20F – Outside Armory 2-D_

 _12 hours and 26 minutes after Outbreak._

The Corpser howled and sprinted at the turian marine.

Rather than back away and risk stumbling, Galen leapt forward and ducked beneath the jagged claws of the crazed monster, it's wildly scything arms hitting nothing but air.

In what I considered now to be the young turian's trademark move, Galen pivoted so that he was facing the back of the snarling creature and placed two well-aimed shots into the back of its skull, where the armor-plating seemed thinnest.

The Corpser's brains blew out in a bright spray of blue and pink and it immediately ceased howling. Galen whirled back around just to duck underneath the claws of another Corpser.

I emptied the remainder of my magazine into the stomach of the first Corpser Galen had executed. The Crawlers within shrieked as they were shredded and fell silent just as the heatsink on my Hurricane overheated and the ammunition counter blinked red.

I quickly clipped it to my thigh and in that same motion brought my left hand up in a gripping gesture. My amp lit up and snagged a pair of onrushing Corpser's in a stasis field before they could join the Corpser currently trying to eviscerate Galen.

Galen ducked underneath a wild swing from his Corpser and delivered a powerful kick right into the gut of his foe. The ex-asari stumbled backwards to fall in front of the two Corpser's that I had trapped, it's jaws snapping in frustration and rage.

A fiery Incineration bolt flew between Galen and I to slam bodily into the trio, setting off a combination detonation that blew the synthetic-organic hybrids to charred hunks of metal and flesh.

A large Krogan Corpser howled almost in indignation and anger at the destruction of its fellow comrades. The body armor it had originally been wearing hung in tatters atop its body, ruptured and destroyed in places where metallic spikes had burst out of its skin. With an angry shake of its head it began stomping towards us.

The first shot blew a fist-sized hole through the center of the Corpser's headplate, exposing what was left of its brain. The second and third punched into its throat, the second one shredding the armor-plating that had grown around it and the third ripping apart its esophagus. The fourth, fifth, sixth blew off the creature's left leg.

It laboriously began to drag itself by its claws, the damage to its throat negating its ability to howl or snarl or make any sort of sound other than a soft, wheezing noise. The seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth bullets blew off both of its arms. Finally, it flopped onto its back and died.

Cade stepped between Galen and I and emptied the remainder of his dual Carnifex's into the stomach of the krogan Corpser, killing the Crawlers within. Satisfied that the combatant was completely out of play, he faked-blew smoke from the barrels of both of his Carnifex's, in utter defiance and disregard of the fact that no weapons in this day and age used gunpowder, and deftly holstered them.

He looped one arm around my shoulder and another around Galen's and pulled us both in.

"Don't you wish Carnifex was at your side?" he crowed.

I rolled my eyes while Galen gave a light laugh. Cade grinned and let us both go. He carefully walked up to the fallen creature and took a moment to appreciate his handiwork.

"Was that really necessary?" Jaelen asked my friend.

Cade threw up his hands in mock defeat and turned towards us in confusion. "I'm sorry, did I misunderstand the part where we are literally outside an armory filled with hundreds of thousands of bullets?"

"Touche."

I scoffed and made my way past my friend, nudging him roughly with my shoulder as I walked by. He stumbled a bit in response but otherwise didn't reciprocate in kind.

Cade and I took up positions on either side of the armory doors, with Jaelen keeping an eye on the corridor we had just come from. I gestured for Galen to move up and open the door.

The young marine came between us and tapped a code into the door's electronic lock. With a hiss they slid open.

Cade was the first one through, then I. The room wasn't large, maybe twenty feet deep, twelve feet wide and eight feet tall, but it was filled to the absolute brim with all sorts of standard weapons. Dozens of Avengers, Predators, Katanas, even a few Mantis Sniper Rifles. It didn't look like the saboteurs had bothered looting the room or its contents.

Satisfied that the room was secured, I waived the rest of my team inside. Galen sealed the door behind us and Jaelen immediately grabbed a large duffel bag from a rack to the side. He wasn't comfortable shooting anything other than his M-3 Predator, and had instead volunteered to be our mule in case our fellow survivors on the bridge needed some extra firepower. He began moving around the room and filling it with all sorts of ammunition blocks and grenades, with a couple of spare weapons in case the survivors needed them. The tiny mass effect field generators built into the bag would help alleviate most of the weight and make it easier to carry.

Galen immediately began moving deeper into the room with Cade and I close behind. None of us bothered with any of the standard-issue weaponry in the main room, all three of us knew that the real goodies were in the sealed section.

A large metal door stood guard at the back of the room. Galen walked up to it and inserted his stolen keycard into a slot in the wall. Immediately the sound of gears could be heard within the door. A green light lit up on a panel and the large metal door began to swing open. The inside of the room was dark but upon our entry a series of automatic lights flickered on, illuminating the treasures within.

This room was much tinier, but the contents were so much more beautiful.

The racks on either side of the room had M-76 Revenants and M-96 Mattock Assault Rifle's slotted into them. Galen immediately made his way over to one of the walls and pulled an M-96 Mattock from the rack. It was a good-looking gun, semi-automatic with a very aesthetic carrying rail and a gunmetal gray finish instead of the usual white, marking it as a Systems Alliance-produced rifle rather than a privately manufactured one.

He inspected the weapon then, satisfied that it was in prime condition, slapped a small holographic sight onto the rail and slid half a dozen ammunition blocks into his belt. The Mattock could fire sixteen rounds as fast as you could pull the trigger before the heatsink overheated, each ammunition block was capable of storing maybe 112 rounds total before it ran dry.

That was a lot of bullets.

It was generally issued to a squad's designated marksmen. The smaller clip size made it less forgiving than the standard M-8 Avenger issued to Systems Alliance marines and it lacked the punch that an M-15 Vindicator or Valkyrie had, but all-in-all it was a good middle ground.

Galen then grabbed a couple of fragmentation and inferno grenades and hooked them onto the grenade-holders on his armor, ignoring the sticky and arc grenades. That was understandable, one had to have very, very good aim to make the best use of sticky grenades, and as nice as arc grenades were for disabling shields and electronics, they didn't do as much real damage as fragmentation or inferno grenades did.

I grabbed six sticky grenades and clipped them to my own grenade-holder. I grabbed my own M-96 Mattock and a pair of ammunition blocks and clipped them to my armor. Satisfied, I made my way to the back of the room where not one, but three Black Widow Sniper Rifles hung in sealed cabinets.

Hung as in past tense. Cade had already smashed the window on all three cabinets and had stripped all three Black Widows of their ammunition blocks. He also grabbed the six back-up blocks and was currently trying to figure out how to store them on his armor without the need for an external backpack. Like me he had grabbed a pair of ammunition blocks for his Vindicator.

"Hey friend, wanna share?" I asked.

Cade gave me a vicious look and muttered something that I couldn't hear. I held out my hand and stared pointedly at him.

After a few seconds, he slapped four of the ammunition blocks into my palm, a lone tear sliding down his face as he did so. That would give me 64 shots for my Snakebite and leave him with just over a hundred and ten rounds. Ass.

I grinned and unhooked my sniper rifle and began to insert one of the blocks. The way modern-day weapons worked was that each gun carried an ammunition block designed for that general line of weaponry. Assault rifles used assault rifle ammunition blocks, pistols used pistol ammunition blocks, shotguns used shotguns, etc etc. You couldn't put an assault rifle's ammunition block into the Snakebite and expect that it would work.

How many rounds you could fire before your weapon overheated and how many reloads your ammunition block provided depended on the size of the bullet your weapon was designed to shave off. For example, Cade's Black Widow could fire three rounds before the weapon overheated and he had to either swap heatsinks or wait for it to cool down. After about 21 total shots, the ammunition block for his weapon would be expended, because each shot was 1/21 of the overall ammunition block.

My Snakebite on the other hand could only fire one round before the weapon overheated, and could eke out sixteen rounds from an ammunition block. Each of my rounds were larger than Cade's, being about 1/16th of an ammunition block.

The damage that a weapon could increase was also further influenced by barrel size, ammunition mods, etc etc, but this is basically the gist of how ammunition blocks worked. Furthermore, once your weapon overheated, you could either wait for it to cool down, or slip a heatsink into your weapon and continue firing.

There were pros and cons of this weapon design. Back in the 21st century, human soldiers carried individual magazines into battle. The fact that each magazine held maybe a couple dozen bullets compounded with the fact that the magazines were large and bulky meant that a soldier could only carry maybe half a dozen of them comfortably into a fight, leaving them with maybe only a little over a hundred bullets depending on their choice of weapons.

With ammunition blocks, a soldier could now carry hundreds of rounds while carrying the same amount of ordinance, and wouldn't have to worry about constantly removing and inserting magazines into his or her weapon. Sure, carrying and swapping heatsinks was a hassle, but it wasn't necessary unless you intended to keep up a near-continuous rate of fire. I kept maybe two or three somewhere on me at all times, otherwise I just let my weapon cool off as needed. That was also one of the benefits of the Snakebite, I could simply pull back the cooling lever and the weapon would cool without me having to wait.

Jaelen walked in while whistling, the duffel bag slung over his shoulder bristling with all manner of weaponry and ammunition, it's mass effect fields reducing its weight to that of maybe a backpack with a couple of textbooks.

He tossed a handful of pistol ammunition blocks at Cade and I. We grabbed them and clipped them somewhere on our thigh armor, near the weapons in question. I made sure to grab a few more, seeing as I tended to use my pistol a lot more than I did my Snakebite or any of the other weapons I was proficient in.

Now that we were both heavily-laden with bullets and grenades, Cade and I were in a much better mood. We had enough bullets to take out an entire army. Well, maybe a couple of companies, but you get the point.

"Theres one more thing," Galen smiled.

The young marine flipped open a panel off to the side and slid his stolen keycard into another slot. With a hiss the cabinets that once held the Black Widows began to slide apart to display a singular weapon stand with its lone occupant sitting snugly in its grasp.

Cade, Jaelen and I all gaped silently as Galen stepped back and crossed his arms, a smug look of amusement on his young plates.

It was an M-920 Cain.

"Dibs!" Cade instantly called out. He immediately shoved me aside and rushed into the small chamber, talons greedily stretched out and tongue spilling out of his mandibles.

Blue fire snaked its way down my arm and I brought my left hand up, trapping my friend in a Stasis. Cade immediately froze in place, his talons mere centimeters from the handle of the M-920 Cain.

Nicknamed the "Nuke Launcher", the M-920 Cain can fire a singular 25 gram slug at a speed of over five kilometers a second. The single shot that it carried possessed devastating explosive force, the impact typically producing a mushroom cloud that gives the weapon its nickname despite the fact that it was technically a railgun.

Also, I feel it prudent to point out that the reason why I don't stasis my enemies more is the fact that rapidly moving targets or targets that are further away are harder to freeze, not to mention the fact that I can't stasis something behind cover and the fact that biotics tended to be very tiresome to perform for non-asari.

Also I really, really didn't need stasis to kill people. Also because it's broken.

I moved my way past the frozen form of my friend. The look of intense pleading in his eyes was so pitiable that for a moment I half-considered letting him have the weapon.

I knelt down to observe the distance between his talon tips and the handle of the M-920 Cain. Two-point-six centimeters.

I tilted my head towards my friend and gave him a look of understanding and pity.

"Listen buddy, I know you really, really, really wanted to play with the Cain, but I need it for something. I can't tell you what I need it for, I can only ask that you take my word and put your trust in me," I explained.

Cade's blue eyes darted to mine. He upped the sadness and pleading in his eyes to the nth degree in a fruitless attempt to persuade me otherwise. Damn, when they really tried, turians could really give golden retrievers a run for their money when it came to puppy-dog eyes.

I gave an exaggerated, extended shrug. "Sucks to suck, friend."

I pulled the M-920 Cain from its stand and collapsed it into its deactivated form. I slipped the M-96 Mattock from my back and placed it on the stand in its stead, storing the M-920 Cain in its spot on my back. I was already carrying my Snakebite, my Predator, and Accer's Hurricane, not to mention a score of ammunition blocks. I didn't need any more extra weight.

My stasis wore off and Cade collapsed onto his knees. He placed both palms on the ground and let out a loud, heart-wrenching sob.

"Spirits damn you!" he cried as he pounded an armored fist onto the floor "Spirits damn you all to hell!"

"What?" Jaelen asked in confusion. Galen shrugged and turned to exit the room.

A green light on my omni-tool indicated that we were being hailed. My radio crackled to life and the slightly unnerved voice of Captain Murgen filtered through.

" _Spectre, we're under attack by the creatures and we're running low on ammunition, are you in position to assist, over?"_

I could also hear weapons fire and screaming also over the radio, but the majority of the noise was that of howling and snarling. I jammed down on the transmit button on my comms. set and quickly replied. "We're about ten minutes out, Captain, can you hold out? We've got weapons and ammunition."

" _We'll do our best. I radioed the Flight Lieutenant to see if she could swing by and drop off the rest of my Jaegers, but that big-ass ship forced her to move further out of the system, she won't get here for at least twenty minutes."_

"Roger that, Captain. We're oscar mike, hang on."

" _Copy, double-time it, Spectre."_

I pulled the Snakebite from my back and pressed its activation button. It immediately extended to its full eighty-two centimeter length, all matte-black with a powerful Seer scope affixed to the top of the gun. Aesthetically it was similar to the Black Widow, albeit with small visual differences.

Unlike the widow, the stock of the gun connected to the handle, and the body of the weapon was slimmer and less curved. The barrel design was similar to the M-92 Mantis or the M-97 Viper in which there was the main barrel and a slightly thinner one situated a few inches below, with a few metal "struts" connecting the two.

Don't ask me what the second barrel is for. It's not like the Mantis, the Viper, or the Snakebite fired from both barrels, or alternated fire between the two, or had an alternative fire method. It was probably just an aesthetic thing that the designers decided on.

Cade, who also heard the radio transmission, immediately ceased his childish antics and pulled his Black Widow out, activating it as well. He made a few minor adjustments to the scope, sighted down it a few times, then nodded at me. It's funny. We both hated shotguns but didn't think twice about using our sniper rifles on targets less than ten meters away.

Galen and Jaelen formed up behind us, the turian with the stock of his newly-acquired Mattock pressed firmly against his shoulder while the salarian had his pistol in one hand, a primed omni-tool in the other, and the bag of weapons on his back.

I took point and led the way.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0542 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 9G, currently enroute to the Bridge Main Entryway_

 _12 hours and 42 minutes after Outbreak._

"Almost there, be ready," I told the rest of my team.

"Roger," Galen replied. The four of us had almost sprinted the entire way back to the bridge, the only respite that we had been allowed was the brief elevator ride back down to deck seven.

"Ready to be of use," Jaelen panted. Ragged gasps for air escaped from the salarian as we maintained our punishing pace towards the bridge. Excelling in the scientific profession required some sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of knowledge and as a result Jaelen wasn't in nearly as good shape as the rest of us.

Cade brought up the rear, his breathing as steady as mine was.

Up ahead the corridor turned sharply to feed into one of the four smaller doors that fed into the bridge's main entryway aside from the massive doors that fed from the ships central passageway.

I could hear shooting and gunfire rise occasionally over the din of howling and snarling, but the cacophony that the creatures raised was the prevailing overture. It didn't sound good.

"Captain Murgen, we're twenty seconds out!" I yelled into my radio.

" _Spectre, this is Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus. Captain Murgen's busy repelling the attackers1 They've broken through the barricades and are on the bridge, we're taking casualties!."_

Shit, once the creatures were inside the survivors would be engaged in close-quarters combat. Firing lines would become distorted, friendly-fire would become an issue, and the creature's numbers clear advantage in close-quarters combat could be disastrous.

"Lieutenant-Commander, you need to consolidate your defenders and re-establish proper firing lanes."

" _Already doing so, Spectre! Get here soon!"_ The line clicked off.

The four of us rounded the corner and dashed into the entryway. More than two dozen Corpser's had their backs turned towards us. The hulking forms of not one, nor two, but three Changer's were interspersed among their numbers.

Ahead of them I could see that more of the creatures and another pair of Changer's had already made their way into the bridge. Streaks of tracer fire hammered into the creatures and a pair of detonations blew packs of the attackers apart, but their efforts did little to stem the tide. The survivors were likely running low on ammunition.

"Cade, with me, big one's first," I rapidly ordered. "Galen, suppress. Jaelen, weaken."

My team nodded and we immediately went to work. A blisteringly-hot Incineration bolt flew from Jaelen's omni-tool to slam into the back of a Changer's head, melting and twisting the armor-plates located there and setting alight some of the Corpser's that had been standing too close to the point of impact.

Cade and I immediately fired a combined total of five shots — three from him and two from me — into the back of the head of Jaelen's target. The Incineration bolt had weakened the plating there, allowing for our shots to punch through with minimal resistance. The face of the Changer erupted in a shower of sparks and flesh. Without a sound, it crumpled at the knees and crashed into the deck.

The rear echelons of the Corpser's turned as one. Twisted, synthetic faces of what had once been human, asari, and salarian leered angrily at us. The red light of their eyes flashed hungrily in anticipation at the thought of finally having access to fresh prey. In unison they howled and began to advance towards us.

Cade's omni-tool lit up and a wave of blue electricity spewed forth to hit the Corpser's front ranks. The Overload charge rooted four or five of the ones at the front of the pack in place, causing a few of their brethren to slam bodily into their backs.

Galen stepped up and let loose a pair of Inferno grenades from his gloved talons. They erupted in a bright-orange detonation of shrapnel and flames that tore nearly a score of the Corpser's apart.

One of the creatures managed to survive the devastating explosions. It coiled and leapt at the young marine, talons outstretched, its jaw unnaturally unhinged to expose row after row of jagged, metallic teeth mixed with the teeth of its original host.

With one quick motion I shouldered my Snakebite and, without bothering to sight down, blew a coconut-sized hole in the stomach of the Corpser. It crashed onto the deck with a shriek where it writhed in pain for a few seconds before Galen stepped up and put two rounds from his Mattock between its eyes.

My biotic amp spun up and I threw my hand forward. A massive blue wave swept forth and knocked another phalanx of Corpser's onto their backs. The powerful Throw field left them disoriented and vulnerable to the marksmanship of my fellow squad members. Gunfire erupted among the turians and the salarian as they all struggled to pick off as many of them as possible. Another grenade detonation further culled their ranks and a hastily-fired Incineration bolt left charred limbs and bodies on the deck of the ship.

I quickly called forth my biotics again. Azure flames erupted around my left hand as I summoned a Singularity and hurled it towards the entrance of the bridge. The tumultuous, dark-purple ball of biotic energy swirled menacingly in the air and prevented any more Corpser's from entering the bridge, buying time for the survivors inside to finish off those that had made it in and buying us time to eradicate the ones outside. A few of the Corpser's that tried to force their way in were picked up by the Singularity and made to dangle helplessly in the air.

Maybe if I were still under the effects of Minagen X9, my Singularity might have impeded the progress of the two remaining massive Changers. But I wasn't, and therefore it was with an ease that bordered on impudence that the pair of nine-feet tall, multi-ton behemoths waded through my Singularity and squeezed into the bridge, ripping through what was left of the barricades.

A pair of heavy-caliber shots blew out the heads of two of the Corpser's caught in my Singularity. I turned around just in time to see Cade duck under the swiping claws of a third Corpser, trigger his booster jets and propel himself several meters back, giving him the room necessary to bring his Black Widow up and squeeze a third shot that destroyed his attacker's head.

"Go!" he waved at me, "We'll handle them!"

The turian deftly slid in a new heatsink and shot a pair of Corpser's that were close to cornering Jaelen, who was busy using an M-8 Avenger from his weapon bag to mop up a wave of Crawlers. Galen was a blur of motion, alternating between his Mattock and his Talon combat knife, weaving between the creatures and leaving behind well-placed shots and knife wounds that either incapacitated or destroyed the creatures.

I ignored it all and clipped my Snakebite onto my back. I brought my hands together and quickly ripped them apart. My Singularity detonated, throwing aside the Corpsers I had entrapped and opening the way.

I sprinted into the bridge. I could see the bodies of several of the ship's remaining security personnel, all with a variety of horrific wounds and dismemberments, strewn on the deck amidst scores of Corpsers.

A few of the bridge officers were also among the fallen. In addition, the bodies of three of Murgen's Jaegers lay in close proximity to the entrance. One had had his whole right arm ripped off if the jagged, meaty edges around his shoulder was any indication, while another seemed to have died from multiple lacerations to his chest. Both still had their M-7 Lancers held tightly in their hands, an indication that just maybe they had gone down fighting.

The third Jaeger was nothing more than a pile of cracked, smoking armor. The similarly-destroyed bodies of half a dozen Corpsers around her told me all I needed to know about her heroic last moments and the decision that she had made.

Percival, Camilla, Lieutenant Barthilus and a few of the survivors who still had ammunition were currently firing all they had at the two Changers. The rest of the survivors – the marines from the Excalibur included – were left with small arms and knives. They formed tight ranks and focused on fighting off the smaller Corpsers.

I dashed forward, my Predator pistol in my hand. I emptied all twelve rounds into the back of the first Changer's head. It barely acknowledged the damage I had inflicted, so intent it was on reaching my friends and destroying them.

As my Predator overheated, I leapt up and used its spikes to clamber my way up its massive back. Once I was up on its shoulders, I wreathed my fist in bright, blue flames and began to hammer the spot where I had emptied my Pistol into.

Each blow further crumpled the plates that I had already weakened prior with my pistol. Eventually the plates cracked, the half-synthetic flesh beneath them tearing away to reveal the creatures brain. It was a sickly gray color, disfigured and tinged blue. A mess of wires ran between the lobes and attached themselves to various parts of the creature's skull.

With a grunt I ripped both Talon's from the small of my back and jammed them again and again into the vulnerable tissue. The Changer didn't make a sound, not even as its brain finally stopped fighting and it crumpled to the deck without warning. I leapt off in surprise as it dropped, the suddenness with which it had died catching me by surprise, forcing me to land in a roll that knocked the wind from me.

I used one hand to push myself up and stumbled shakily to my feet. I watched as my friends fired everything they had at the last of the massive creatures to no avail. Camilla charged forward, her geth plasma shotgun firing bolts of super-heated plasma that splashed across the remaining Changer's chest, causing its thick armor-plating to hiss and bubble from the heat.

The massive creature didn't falter. Her brave maneuver barely slowed it down. Deterred by the limited effect of her attack on the creature's charge, Camilla began backpedaling desperately to allow her shotgun time to cool down.

The creature must have sensed her vulnerability, her fear, because with a massive jolt it leapt into motion. It increased its pace and lurched towards her with frightening speed.

A mote of panic wormed its way into my brain, past all the adrenaline, the drugs, the combat-high. If Camilla died we wouldn't have any way to destroy the ship. No way to stop the creatures aboard from escaping and infecting the whole galaxy.

Percival made to move towards the scared technician but a pair of salarian Corpser's crashed bodily into the pre-occupied Spectre and brought him to the ground. I could hear him grunting and the scrape of metallic claws against armor as he struggled beneath their weight.

I could hear booster jets and footsteps behind me, but they were too far. I shifted to a run towards the drive core technician but I knew that I was too far as well. I tried to stasis the creature, but while I could maybe freeze a limb or two, I couldn't freeze the entirety of its twisted, shambling mass of rotted flesh, armor plating and cabling.

It dragged the leg that I had put into stasis along, marginally slowing its progression. The cables that sprouted from its left arm and shoulders rose like snakes and grasped towards the drive core technician as if they had a life of their own. Less than a meter away, Camilla stood frozen in fear, her shotgun held at her side in a limp, sweaty grasp.

A black-armored form with the image of a white knight stamped on his shoulder crashed into the side of the paralyzed technician, knocking her out of the way and putting himself squarely in the path of the creature's cables. He whirled to face the creature, just in time to see no less than four of the cables drive deep into his chest, punching through his chestplate and out of his armored back.

I could hear the man cry out in pain from behind his slitted-helmet. The creature lifted the mortally-wounded marine into the air and brought him face to face with its own twisted visage, the matte-black surface of the Jaeger's helmet tinged red as it was bathed in the dull, red light of the creature's eyes.

The Jaeger began to convulse as whatever was in those cables started to change the very fabric of his DNA. Metal spikes burst through his undersuit, his left arm began to shake and his pauldron fell off as the arm doubled in size and a series of metallic talons ripped their way through his vambraces.

His helmet tilted to look past the shoulder of the creature to stare directly at me. My eyes made note of the motion he was trying to make with his right hand and I nodded in understanding of his intent.

I gave him one last look, poured as much sympathy, sorrow, and above all, respect, into it as I could and raised my hands. A large biotic barrier sprang up like a bubble around the monster and its prey.

A series of massive spikes had already emerged from the man's back, his left arm was barely recognizable and his head now twitched back and forth, low moans coming from within his helmet.

His right arm, shaking and twitching, dropped to his right leg, and with the last of his humanity he pressed the activation trigger of the first grenade, then the second, and the third, and the fourth.

Ask a physicist what happens when a series of detonations occur in an enclosed space, such as the space created by my barrier. It magnifies the damage.

The explosion utterly destroyed the creature, and a man died with the knowledge that his sacrifice had perhaps spared the galaxy from the horrors that we had seen aboard the SSV Hippocrates.


	16. Chapter 16 - In the Name of Justice

**Chapter 16 – In the Name of Justice**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0559 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge_

 _12 hours and 59 minutes after Outbreak._

Cade immediately rushed to Camilla's side and gently pulled her to her feet. "Camilla, are you alright?" he asked.

My friend made no attempt to mask the sheer amount of concern in his voice in spite of his earlier, vehement denial that anything was going on between the two. Honestly, I wasn't going to give him shit for it now. I was immensely relieved that both of them had made it out unscathed.

The Hispanic technician shakily pulled herself to her feet, arms wrapped around Cade for support. Camilla was a strong woman, that fact was uncontestable, but her close brush with such a gruesome death would break the mien of even the most stalwart and experienced of soldiers.

The shock began to slowly dissipate while in the arms of the turian Spectre and the full magnitude of what had just happened, what she had avoided only through the selfless actions of another, began to hit her in force. The first sob broke the seal, to be quickly followed by another, then another, and then a flood of tears.

Cade cradled the technician and hummed softly with his subvocals, a tactic many turian parents used to calm their children in times of stress. He gently rested her head on the undamaged portions of his chestplate and with a gloved talon began to softly stroke the top of her head, giving her silent support but otherwise opting to let her cry it out.

Percival tossed a pair of Corpser's off of him. His wound on his upper arm had opened up again, red blood flowing freely down his armored arm to mingle with the fluids that the creatures had left behind. With a nod to me he turned and began to aid Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus in rallying the remaining survivors. There were barely forty of us left.

A tall man in black, angular armor pushed his way towards me. He gently removed his helmet and rested it in the crook of his elbow. Captain Elias Murgen looked to have aged at least ten years in the short time since I had last seen him. He had just lost four of the twelve Jaeger's he had brought aboard the ship in less than an hour – men and women that he had likely known for years.

Accer and Teewin moved up beside him, the young biotic was pale and wan, but was otherwise in good enough condition to throw me a quick wave. His Predator pistol was still held in his one remaining hand. Teewin had removed his helmet as well and was currently running a bloody hand through his short, patchy brown hair, His M-76 Revenant slung on his back. Not a single, remaining ammunition block hung from the combat webbing or a utility pouch on either of the two Jaeger's armor.

Rake and his marines followed close behind. The gunnery chief was in relatively good shape. A massive bruise had sprouted up on the side of his face where the turian saboteur, Severus, had elbowed him, but otherwise his eyes were alert and focused. Soph shot me a tired smile, in contrast the specialists' eyes were tired, with bags underneath them. Fly and Jay brought up the rear.

The Corpsman had one hand underneath the armpit of the shorter marine, helping him along. Jay's armor was covered in the fluids what had to have been at least a Corpser from every species. The cross tattooed onto his neck was barely visible under the thick sheen of dried blood. He was bleeding profusely from a wound in his leg and like the two Jaegers didn't have a single spare ammunition block anywhere on him, but he seemed to be in relatively good spirits. He beamed at me and waved a hand in greeting and I nodded and smiled back.

I turned to regard Captain Murgen. He was staring pensively at the spot where his man had died, his helmet still under one arm, his other hand holding tight onto the collar of his chest-plate.

There was nothing there now, nothing but a few broken pieces of armor, some damaged plating, and a severed cable with scorch marks along its length. The force generated by the four grenades within my biotic barrier had destroyed any remaining organic tissue.

"I've known John for almost a decade," Murgen began. "He passed selection back in '01, after about four years in the Alliance marines. He was part of my team for the first five, spent the last five as my XO after my last one bought the farm during a retrieval mission on some backwater space station a band of pirates decided to take over."

Murgen sighed and closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. "He was one of the bravest marines I knew, the kind that the vids back home would have you believe would always survive to make it home in the end. He could outshoot me, outrun me and outfight me, I'd hoped that he'd outlive me in the field."

I moved up, skirting respectfully around the perimeter of the First Lieutenant's final resting place, careful not to tread on his remains.

I clasped a hand on the Jaeger Commander's shoulder. "First Lieutenant Johnathan Bradford might have just saved us all, without him we would have lost technician Martell and our way of destroying the creatures aboard this ship."

The captain nodded and I removed my hand. "Miss Martell had just finished briefing us on a possible way for us to destroy the ship when those things attacked in force. John knew that she was the only one who could pull it off, it didn't surprise me in the slightest that he kept an eye on her throughout the whole fight."

Murgen knelt beside the scarred and pitted deck and gently ran his gloved fingers through the sooty residue that lay on top of it. He gently rubbed it between his fingers, then clenched his fist.

"Lieutenant Burton,"

Accer clicked his heels together and saluted even though his commanding officer was currently kneeling in a pile of his friend's ashes.

"Sir?"

"First Lieutenant Bradford, Service Chief Terry, Specialist Deschamps and Specialist Delgado are KIA."

The biotic lieutenant nodded morosely. Beside him Teewin grunted angrily. All four of the Jaegers had been a part of their team.

"You are hereby acting commander of Jaeger Team Two, and my new XO."

Accer straightened up even further, every muscle fiber going completely rigid as he struggled to suppress his surprise at his new orders.

"Sir, yes sir!"

Beside the young biotic, Teewin gently nudged the smaller marine and nodded at him.

Captain Elias Murgen rose up from where he had been kneeling beside the remains of First Lieutenant Bradford and turned towards his new XO.

"I wish this were under better circumstances and I know you just lost most of your team, but I need you to step up now. John had the utmost faith in you, and I do too."

The Jaeger Commander slapped the marine biotic on the shoulder, right where the white knight was painted, and moved towards the remainder of his marines. A pair of them were sporting minor lacerations but the rest of them looked to be in decent shape. Likely the three casualties at the entrance of the bridge occurred because the creatures caught the highly-trained marines by surprise.

"Captain Murgen!" I called out.

Elias turned and looked at me. "Yes, Spectre?"

I gestured to the four marines I had brought from the Excalibur. I hadn't known them very well before shit hit the fan, but if the events of the last day had shown me anything, it was that each of them were brave, skilled, and dedicated. They were marines who I'd want at my back as I hunted down the rest of the saboteurs, their ship, and this individual whom they had called 'Mordred'.

"I've got four marines outside of their usual chain of command. With your permission, I'd like to put them under Lieutenant Burton's command for the time being – and by extension, your command. He's worked well with them and I'd sleep a lot better knowing Gunnery Chief Hinzo isn't in charge."

A look of feigned hurt instantly crossed Rake's face, but the smile he shot at me afterwards indicated that there were to be no hard feelings between us about my decision. He'd told me before that he hated being in command. He just happened to be the highest-ranking marine I'd brought with me from the Excalibur.

Jay, Fly and Soph all chuckled and began to quietly give their fellow marine as much shit as possible. Captain Murgen smiled wryly and nodded.

"Permission granted. Think you can handle it, Lieutenant?"

Accer nodded and gave a small smile. Despite his loss, his spirit was intact. "One hundred percent, sir."

"Don't let me down, Lieutenant. You too, Gunnery Chief," Captain Murgen saluted his two Jaegers and went to go check on the rest of his men.

Accer turned to the four marines I'd brought, a slight grin plastered on his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I still had both hands you could be damned sure I'd be rubbing them evilly right now."

His left arm ended slightly below the elbow where Olivia had severed it, temporarily disabling his ability to use his biotics and nearly killing the young marine. His pistol, grenades, his combat knife, all of them had been moved to the right side of his body, giving him easy access and leaving him relatively combat effective.

"Gunnery Chief Sean Teewin will be my unofficial second-in-command. Overall command of the Jaegers still remains with Captain Elias Murgen, but in the event that we split up that role will fall to me. In the interests of galactic safety, I highly encourage you to follow any and all orders that Operatives Cloud, Percival, and Kitiarian may give you over mine."

None of the marines said a word of complaint nor cracked a single joke as Accer outlined what was what. A part of me was afraid that they wouldn't take his command seriously. I know that I should have had more faith in Rake and his team, but Accer was by far the youngest of the six marines that now comprised Jaeger Team Two.

There's no such thing as a one-dimensional marine in terms of personality. Even the most serious, professional marine was going to crack a smile once in a while. Accer was definitely one of the less solemn ones – always ready with a joke, always ready with a quip. That had allowed him to strike up a quick rapport and friendship with the marines.

But sometimes it could be hard to follow the orders of someone you saw as a friend and not your commanding officer. Especially if that individual was younger than you. Rake and Fly were both in their early thirties, and Soph and Jay and Teewin were all likely hitting their late twenties. It was natural and understandable for them to perhaps not see Accer as their commanding officer, but more as a friend and fellow marine. Orders wouldn't necessarily be disobeyed, but might be followed more slowly, with more hesitation. In the heat of combat with lives or the mission on the line, that could be disastrous

But as I watched them listen to the young Jaeger, I saw on each of their faces, in each of their expressions, the quintessential element that binded an officer to his or her soldiers – that allowed them to work fluidly and seamlessly together in a professional setting, regardless of how they might feel about each other. The element that guaranteed that no matter what personality that officer had or what relationships that officer had with their men, orders would be followed, the chain of command maintained, and the mission completed.

Respect.

They all respected Accer. The young biotic Jaeger had earned it with his affability, his approachability, the ease with which he struck up friendships, his fighting skills, his level-headedness in combat. He'd earned it when he risked his life to save mine back in the engine room, when he nearly, quite literally, single-handedly put an end to the deranged Doctor Devaris back in the medical deck.

Ha, I should have my own show.

Nonetheless, here was another individual who had been thrust into the clusterfuck that was this outbreak and had so far passed each test and trial with flying colors. With the possibility that these creatures could spread throughout the galaxy, more than ever the galaxy needed men like him to step up and assume the mantle handed down by those such as First Lieutenant Johnathan Bradford.

I remember watching Cade play a video game back when we had some downtime between missions. It had been a first-person shooter, a remaster of a remaster of a remaster. I remember during this one cutscene at the start of the game, the protagonist's friend, mentor, fellow soldier – whatever – had turned to him and said a line that really resonated with me, especially considering the profession that I had found myself thrust in and considering the kind of people that I found myself associating with.

"Folk's need heroes, chief. To give 'em hope."

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0629 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge – Briefing Room 16-A_

 _13 hours and 29 minutes after Outbreak._

"Fill me in, Rentea."

The asari doctor wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and pulled a pair of blood-stained sterile medical gloves off of her hands.

"All injuries have been treated for now, aside from the KIA's all the other wounded had nothing more than a few light-to-moderate lacerations. I've used up the rest of the medi-gel we brought with us from the medical deck and I've given the synthstims to those with the most serious wounds to get them up and mobile. We should have no problem reaching the evacuation point, which I would assume to be one of the hangars."

I nodded at her. Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus spoke up next. The XO of the Hippocrates had a bandage around one eye where a Corpser had gotten off a lucky hit and the Predator pistol he had holstered at his waist looked like it had seen better days, but the turian bridge officer was still kicking. His coordination of the survivors during the attack had been impressive given the lack of ammunition and training that they had.

"We have about a dozen security personnel left, plus around twenty assorted crewmembers. Counting you three and Captain Murgen's Jaegers and the marines, we've got forty-seven survivors. Like the good doctor says, all of us can walk and all of us are very, very ready to leave."

"We've also got guns and ammunition again, thanks to you and your team," Captain Murgen chimed in, "Enough to give every survivor who can use one a weapon and an ammunition block."

I cursed. Forty-seven survivors out of a crew of slightly over a thousand, less if you considered the fact that Percival, Cade and I, alongside Rake and his team, weren't part of the original crew. The saboteurs had probably numbered around forty or fifty members, with maybe ten percent of them having made it off the ship.

That meant that more than 90% of the ship's crew had died in the last fourteen hours.

I pushed it to the back of my mind and turned my attention back to the briefing. "Where do we stand in regards to the ship's destruction? What did you guys come up with?" I asked.

Percival rotated his battered helmet again and again between his fingers. The big man's blond hair was matted with sweat and blood from where one of the creatures had landed a glancing blow.

"We can't enable the self-destruct from the bridge, the drive core components sustained too much damage for us to activate it, bridge and engineering VI's basically confirmed the fact afterwards."

He glanced over at Camilla and then back towards the rest of the group. "We can't enable the self-destruct, no nuclear weapons, no faster-than-light capabilities, and all four primary thrusters are dead, also sabotaged."

Percival stopped and gave us a charming, toothy grin. "But we have emergency thrusters."

Cade turned to me and shot me a small smile, one that I returned. What was the name of the red dwarf in the system that the SSV Hippocrates was currently floating in? It had been included in the original briefing but we'd dismissed it as non-essential information not pertinent to the mission at hand.

Theodore 108, that was it.

Barthilus raised his hand. "Spectre, I understand your intent but I don't see how it's possible. The emergency thrusters were designed to be fired in exactly that – emergency situations. They were designed for one-time use and require substantial maintenance and refitting before the ship's computers would allow us to fire them again."

The turian officer's mandibles flapped once as he tried to suppress his skepticism. His misgivings were understandable,

"This isn't one of those movies that Citadel production companies churn out every half quarter. We were moving at a speed of several hundred meters a second when the engines were shut down, we're still moving at that rate because that's how physics works. By my estimates, at the rate we're moving firing our emergency thrusters would just be barely enough to bring us to a full stop, but after that we'd still be dead in the water, hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Theodore 108," Barthilus finished.

Percival stepped back from the table we had gathered at and gestured for Camilla to step forward. Finding and saving the drive core technician had been a stroke of extreme luck on the part of Cade and I.

Had we not found her, the saboteurs would have likely succeeded in their shadowy, secretive objectives and this ship and its denizens might very well have remained intact, lying in wait for a salvage crew or a rescue operation to open its pandora's box of terrors.

If we died during this op they'd better remember that. God help me.

Camilla cleared her throat and brought up a schematic on her omni-tool.

"I can bypass the safeties on the emergency thrusters from here, on the bridge. It would allow us to fire the emergency thrusters in pulses – we'd have to wait for them to cool down between each pulse, but it should be enough to get the Hippocrates into the gravitational pull of Theodore 108."

She highlighted a portion of the schematic and expanded it for us to see.

Her slight Hispanic accent grew more and more evident as she became lost in her own explanation. "By my estimates, the emergency thrusters can handle a six-second burn, followed by at least ten minutes to cool down before we can fire it again."

"Theoretically we can then keep firing them until the thrusters literally fall apart, but in practice we might only have thirteen or fourteen pulses before they're done for."

Camilla pulled up a star-map of the system with two points marked on it. The first was marked with the symbol of the SSV Hippocrates, the second was a round ball in the center of the map labelled 'Theodore 108'. A dotted line that form a rough parabola with thirteen X's marked along its length connected the Hippocrates to the star.

"We will fire the thrusters a total of thirteen times, I'll program the VI's to make minute course adjustments after every pulse so that we stay on course and don't miss our target. After the thirteenth, we'll be in the immediate gravitational pull of Theodore 108 and gravity will do the rest."

She uploaded the map to our omni-tools, adding time notations beside each X to give us a rough timeline of when each pulse would occur.

"We want to be long gone before we enter Theodore's gravity well, so we should coordinate with your Flight Lieutenant to arrange for our evacuation. Bypassing the safeties on the emergency thrusters and uploading the navigational instructions to the bridge VI's shouldn't take me more than twenty minutes at most, so we should be ready to move by then."

All of us nodded. We now had a done and dusted plan to destroy this floating nightmare once and for all.

I raised my hand. "Any chance that someone could disable the bypass or the navigational instructions?" I asked the Hispanic drive core technician.

Camilla brushed an errant strand of hair behind an ear and shook her head. "No, the safeties will literally be destroyed, and unless someone has higher clearance than Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus our navigational instructions can't be tampered with either."

I nodded and crossed my arms. Thirteen burns with ten minutes in between amounted to a little over two hours, plus the time Camilla would require to actually make the preparations. Should be enough time for me to do what I had to do.

"Alright, go get started then. Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus and Captain Murgen, if you would, please start preparing the survivors and the rest of our forces for evacuation. Rentea, assist them if you can, I want us ready to leave when Camilla gives us the green light."

The people I'd named nodded and left the briefing room, leaving Cade, Percival, Jaelen and I. The salarian had been quiet the entire time we had been discussing the ship, such technical knowledge being outside his area of expertise. His input on engineering matters wasn't the reason why I had asked him to attend, however.

I uncrossed my arms and placed my palms flat against the holo-table.

"You've all watched the video I sent you, alongside Jaelen's notes, right? Or at least read the transcript?"

Morose nods all around. We stood in silence for a while as each of us considered what we had to say on the matter.

Jaelen broke the silence first. "Have examined tissue samples of creatures using DNA sequencer. Presence of both Reaper and unknown-origin DNA alongside hosts' original DNA. Composition strikingly similar to the DNA found in subset of Reaper cores by female investigator in video."

We all nodded in agreement.

The salarian doctor grabbed the medical container at his feet, the one filled with the biopsies and tissue samples he'd taken, and plopped it on the table. "Connection to phenomenon on Earth and Thessia a high possibility. Need to get samples to lab, need to perform further tests," Jaelen continued.

Cade twitched his mandibles and crossed his arms. "As much as I hate to think about it, there is every possibility that the outbreak on this ship is simply the accelerated version of what is currently happening on Earth and Thessia. Spirits, this could be bad."

"Not just Earth and Thessia," Percival added. "The Reapers maintained a sizeable ship presence on almost every major planet during the war, and when Shepard activated the crucible and destroyed them all virtually every ship remained structurally intact, even though the Reaper AI's that controlled them were wiped."

He pulled up a star map of the galaxy on his omni-tool and began highlighting systems and planets – Earth, Thessia, Kar'shan, Palaven, Taetrus, Hyetiana, the list went on and on.

"Reaper capital ships invaded almost every major colony in the Milky Way. Even more than two decades after the war many of those wrecks still remain. If what the woman on the video said was true, then perhaps not every Reaper core has the ability to trigger the phenomenon or an outbreak, but we still have no idea which ones can, and where those cores are."

I nodded in agreement and dug my fingers harder into the table. "The more populated a colony was, the more ships the Reaper's sent, and the more cores that were left behind when the Crucible activated. That means that we could have sleeping bombs dangerously placed in nearly every major population sector in the galaxy, waiting to trigger an outbreak. We could lose billions, maybe trillions, of people."

"We know there's likely a few on Earth and Thessia, but the galaxy doesn't have the manpower to clean-up all those wrecks, or else we would have done so by now," Cade added.

The turian sighed and rubbed his fringe with his hand. "We don't have the means to evacuate every planet that was invaded by the Reapers during the war, nor do we have the means to identify which of the cores are capable of starting an outbreak and which ones are duds."

I gritted my teeth. "We need to find a way to find those cores."

Jaelen nodded. "Agreed, Spectres. Have gathered as much evidence and data as we can. With a bit of research we can hopefully find a way to identify which cores have the aggressor DNA, maybe even synthesize a cure or a vaccine, reverse phenomenon on Earth and Thessia, stop this in its tracks."

Percival finally stopped spinning his helmet in his hands and clipped it to his back. "We need to get off this ship, take our findings to the Council, then stop this before it's too late."

"And make sure we do it before the saboteurs," Cade added. "Chalk it up to a twisted imagination, but I have a sinking feeling that what we experienced on this ship? What happened to the crew? This is the 'Transcendence' that they've been talking about, that they intend for everyone."

"That is fucked up," Percival groaned. "You'd think that someone would go 'Hey! It doesn't sound like what we're shooting for here is some kind of divine, spiritual salvation, in fact, it kinda looks like were turning everyone into mindless killing machines instead, maybe we should stop!', am I right?"

Cade chuckled and shook his head, amused at the portrayal of the immense level of delusion that one would have to be immersed in to go along with the saboteur's plan.

I refrained from laughing and instead looked at Jaelen.

"There's still one last piece of evidence aboard this ship, one that we can retrieve, recover, and use to figure out how to stop this shit," I said.

Cade, Percival and Jaelen all looked at me in confusion.

"The Reaper CPU."

Cade's mandibles splayed in alarm and he immediately threw in his two cents. "No, no way. That thing is still plugged into the Reaper core back at the Prometheus labs, and it should stay that way."

Percival crossed his arms. "I agree with Cade. There's already a high chance that the cores and - by extension the DNA - used to construct them are responsible for what's happened. There's no need to go on a suicide mission within a suicide mission to confirm what we already know. We have enough samples already, they contain the DNA. We don't need go back down there."

The turian Spectre's blue eyes glinted dangerously while Percival's were clouded with worry. On an awkward aside, I sometimes still found it hard to believe that all three of us had blue eyes. I guess in Cade's case it wasn't a recessive trait, but for humans it was considerably less common. My mother had blue eyes.

I looked at Percival, then Cade. Both of them had a look of apprehension on their faces. Cade looked ready to put me in a choke-hold were I to give off the slightest whiff of disobedience while Percival merely waited patiently my response.

I sighed heavily and relaxed my stance. "Fine. I would need a much better reason than that to go back into the Prometheus labs."

The ease with which I surrendered took both my friend's by surprise. Cade's mandibles twitched in shock and Percival looked nonplussed.

"Thank you," Percival sighed in relief. "I know you want to grab as much intel as you can, but you need to remember that you saw things we didn't aboard this ship, specifically in regards to the saboteurs. Your unique testimony to the Council could be more useful than whatever that Reaper CPU could tell us, if it could even tell us anything more than what we already know."

"I don't trust him." Cade hissed. "We should-,"

A loud trio of loud gunshots brought our friendly discussion to an abrupt stop. As one we all slipped our helmets on, whirled and made a beeline for the door with Cade in the lead, followed by me, then Percival. Jaelen grabbed the sample container and immediately took cover underneath the table, Predator out.

Out on the bridge the rest of the survivors were crouched around the perimeter, their hands covering their heads in fear. Some of them were sobbing while others were prone on the ground.

Murgen and his men, alongside the surviving security personnel, stood in a semi-circle with their rifles raised. The barrel of more than a dozen rifles were pointed at a pair of figures standing one of the terminals at the forefront of the bridge.

The first one was Camilla.

The second was Captain Jameson Farragut. The sorry piece of shit was still alive.

A Predator pistol was clutched in a sweaty, shaking hand, its barrel jammed against the temple of the struggling drive core technician. Farragut had his other arm wrapped around her neck, holding her between him and the rifles of Murgen's Jaeger's. Camilla screamed a litany of Spanish curses at the deranged bridge officer, her hands tugging furiously at his arm.

Cade and I shared a quick look and we both immediately activated our tactical cloaks. Percival pushed his way between the line of Jaeger's. Accer and Teewin shifted to give him room, but otherwise their weapons never wavered from Farragut.

Percival made a couple of cautious steps forward. He held out both hands away from any of his weapons and made an attempt to look as unintimidating as possible.

"Captain Farragut, talk to me, what's going on here?" he calmly asked.

The bridge officer was shaking violently. Beads of sweat ran down his nose and into his beard, his teeth were so tightly clenched that I half expected them to break. His arm tightened around Camilla's neck, cutting off her curses and causing her to choke and sputter.

Somewhere nearby, I could sense Cade tensing up.

"I won't let you destroy the ship," Farragut hissed. He pressed the barrel of his Predator pistol harder into Camilla's temple. To her credit, she didn't so much as flinch. Her eyes were dry of tears, devoid of fear, filled with nothing but pure anger.

The captain dug his arm deeper into her neck. "I know you need Miss Martell here to do it. I won't let you destroy this ship," he repeated.

Percival nodded slowly and calmly gestured for the Jaegers to lower their weapons. To their credit, every Jaeger immediately did so. Percival took another step, his calm, blue gaze taking note of Farragut's reaction at his attempts at de-escalation.

Now that there weren't a dozen guns trained on him, Farragut's breathing became noticeably less labored. He must have loosened his grip on Camilla a tiny bit because the drive core technician immediately took in a huge gulp of air. The barrel of his pistol however remained firmly pressed against her temple.

Percival tried to reason with the captain. "Jameson, you know why we need to destroy these creatures. You saw what happened less than an hour ago. Brave soldiers died – are dying – to stop these things. If we don't destroy this ship their sacrifices will have been for nothing."

"They knew the risks!" Farragut screamed. "We could have called for an evacuation! We could have contained the situation! I won't let you destroy everything I've worked so hard for!"

An icon lit up in my HUD telling me that I had received a private text message. I looked at it and blinked, opening it up.

 _[SpectreOp. CK] [06:47]: He's going to kill her_

 _[SpectreOp.1C] [06:47]: Patience, trust in Percival._

 _[SpectreO. CK] [06:47]: I have to do something._

 _[SpectreOp.1C] [06:48]: Trust Percival._

Farragut's fingers tightened ever so lightly around the trigger of his Pistol. Camilla had stopped cursing, instead she seemed to be looking desperately around the room, looking for something, looking for someone.

I slowly moved into position, weaving my way between the Jaegers, careful not to accidentally nudge or startle one and give myself away. Slowly, deliberately, I pulled my own Predator out of my holster.

"Miss Martell here is the last surviving engineer, if I kill her you'll have no way to destroy this ship," Farragut snarled. He dug the barrel of his weapon deeper into Camilla's temple. My hand tightened angrily around the grip of my gun as I watched a line of tears begin well up in Camilla's eyes.

In an act that likely surprised everyone on the bridge, Percival dropped his hands and laughed. The non-threatening stance he had adopted vanished. The Spectre stood up straight and removed his helmet, chuckling.

"If you really think I need Miss Martell to accomplish that, you're dumber than I thought, Farragut," he smirked.

"I've been a Council Spectre for almost a decade," Percival said tauntingly. My friend then gestured at the bright red stripe on his right arm.

"See this? It means I'm also an N7. Graduated the Villa, three hundred tryouts and less than thirty made it to the very end. Of the thirty, I was top of my class and I was only 23 years old at the time, one of the youngest ever to complete the full course."

Farragut sneered at my friend's bravado and arrogance. "I don't see how that matters, what's it all supposed to mean?"

I watched as Percival smiled the smile he reserved for what he considered to be the absolute scum of the galaxy. Krogan pirate warlords, batarian slavers, human terrorists – it was a smile the normally humble, respectful, and dutiful marine reserved for those he was going to kill in the name of galactic safety.

"It means that even if you kill Miss Martell, I'll find another way. And if you stop that too, I'll simply find another, and another. Because that's what Spectres do, because that's what N7's are trained to do."

Farragut snarled and moved the barrel of his weapon so it was pointed at my friend. "Then maybe I should kill you instead!"

That was my moment. Cade and I both acted simultaneously – our pistols flew up, our fingers squeezed down on our triggers and a single shot erupted from each of our barrels with a bright-blue flash. The action de-activated our tactical cloaks and revealed our positions to the stunned survivors. The Jaegers immediately went on high alert and brought their weapons to bare.

One shot went straight into the body of Farragut's Predator pistol. The heavy round destroyed the inner mechanisms of the weapon and warped the barrel. It flew out of Farragut's hand, spitting sparks like a malfunctioning tazer, and fell onto the deck with a clatter.

Another went straight between the eyes of the Captain. His head snapped back and a fine, red mist erupted from a golf ball-sized cavity that appeared at the back of his skull. The console behind him caught the full brunt of the red mist, the display flickering as the bullet travelled straight through and embedded itself in its screen.

Farragut's eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut. Camilla tore herself out of his limp grasp and ran towards Cade.

Cade holstered his weapon just in time to catch the drive core technician. He pulled her in a deep hug, then grabbed her by her upper arms and moved her slightly away. I holstered my pistol and nodded to Percival, who nodded back. No point checking for a pulse.

"Camilla, are you alright?" Cade asked.

Camilla nodded shakily and sniffled. She looked back at the body of the captain and spat at it.

A throaty roar erupted from somewhere in the crowd. Before we could pinpoint its source, a massive, grey shape crashed bodily into Cade, bringing the stunned turian to the ground.

My friend had some of the best reflexes I'd ever seen on a Spectre, his hand immediately shot to his Carnifex only to fall away as he realized who was attacking him.

A large, taloned fist crashed heavily into his face, slamming his head against the deck and eliciting a terrified scream from Camilla.

Another fist caught him in the upper right eye, quickly followed by another to his left mandible, yet still my friend lay there under the withering hail of blows, making no attempt to defend himself.

" 'Hero of Palaven', you're no hero!" snarled Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus.

Cade made no attempt to defend himself. If he had the Sergeant would have been dead by now. Instead he tried to open his mouth to speak, only for another fist to crash heavily into it.

"You killed your commanding officer during the Palaven Rebellions! You killed the commanding officer of this ship! You're no turian, you're a disgrace! A bare-faced mongrel without an ounce of honor!" Mardinus screamed at him.

The violent act of retribution from the characteristically stone-faced turian sergeant had caught all of us flat-footed, even me. Camilla let out another yell and made a move towards Cade but Galen pulled her back. Percival held out both arms in an attempt to keep the rest of the survivors calm. Accer and Teewin and all the Jaegers brought their weapons up and trained them squarely at the berserk turian.

Cade blinked blearily and coughed up a wad of blue blood. His normally-clear gaze was unfocused and confused. Mardinus grabbed him by the collar of his armor, lifted him ever so slightly, then slammed him hard back down onto the deck. My friend's head snapped painfully back but to his credit he didn't make a sound.

The heavier, bulkier turian brought his face within an inch of Cade's, his mandibles flared wide.

"You ruined the peace treaty! You killed your commanding officer – you killed your own father! Your own flesh and blood! You destroyed everything we fought for and they called you 'hero' for it! Because of you my friends died for nothing – because of you Palaven will never again be as it was before the Reaper War!"

My eyes went wide with surprise at the sergeant's accusation. Maybe this wasn't about the death of Captain Farragut.

The Palaven Rebellions had happened more than half a decade ago, a little after the Slaver Fringe Wars. The Seccessionists had been a faction of turians who had felt that the Council of Primarchs had spent too many turian resources and manpower to fix the galaxy in the wake of the Reaper War and too little on turian planets and colonies – Palaven especially.

They had felt a sense of injustice. Turian firepower and therefore turian casualties had kept the bulk of the Reaper Invasion forces occupied in the Trebia system during the war, allowing the rest of the galaxy to solidify their defenses. After the war, the Primarch had directed a large portion of what remaining turian resources they had towards the restoration of the galaxy as a whole, rather than focusing primarily on turian systems.

As a result, turian tax credits went towards asari and human refugees, krogan infrastructure, even batarian colonies, and many of the survivors remained homeless or starved. While many turian citizens saw their sacrifices as a necessary part of their duty as the galaxies primary peacekeeping forces, a sizeable portion felt that it was unfair – duty and loyalty to their people superseded their loyalty to the upper echelons of the Turian Hierarchy. They could not stand idle while turian colonies lay broken and their people fought for scraps of food.

Parts of Cipritine, Capital City of Palaven, remained broken and scarred even a decade and a half after the war ended. An iconic holo-photo of the city's ruins taken by a gifted turian journalist captured the spirit and the heart of how many unsatisfied turians felt about the decisions of the Primarch in regards to the needs of their people. When that photo began showing up on turian news channels, the dam broke. The Seccessionists wanted to leave the Hierarchy.

Eventually the Rebellions began in earnest sometime in 2303 on Palaven and continued on until around 2304. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as the Seccessionists engaged Loyalist forces on major turian colonies. What made the Palaven Rebellions so particularly brutal was the fact that the Seccessionists didn't fight for personal glory, or money, or power, or fame. They fought for what they believed was right, and that made them dangerous.

They simply wanted the Primarch to do their duty to their people. They wanted them to fix Palaven. And if he wouldn't, then they would leave and do it themselves.

Eventually, Secessionist leadership forces agreed to a cease-fire summit offered by the currently-sitting Primarch of Palaven. They were to discuss peace terms to bring an end to the terrible civil war.

Unbeknownst to the Primarch, the Blackwatch unit he brought with him to guard him had its own Seccessionists seeded within. One Koltira Kitiarian, 997th Commander of the Blackwatch, made plans to assassinate the Primarch and several other high-ranking Loyalist leaders. He made plans to detonate a bomb, martyring the Seccessionist delegation as well to make it look like the Primarch had done so, in an attempt to incite those with Seccessionist sympathies who had not chosen to take up arms to do so and to restore Palaven to its rightful glory.

He was stopped by one of his own. A young, bright-eyed turian, newly inducted to the Blackwatch. A talented soldier, a future Spectre — a son who wanted nothing more than to prove to his father that he could be a good turian, a true turian.

The Primarch, in an act of both wisdom and shrewd cunning, made the actions of the renegade commander public knowledge. He then decided to openly forgive all Seccessionists willing to lay down their arms and to immediately begin restoration efforts of all cities and colonies that still lay in ruin, to be completed within two decades. He also promised the best efforts of the turian councilor at petitioning Council aid for a reparations fund in light of exemplary turian service and the disproportionate sacrifices that they'd made during the war.

This mollified the Seccessionists, who were at heart good, loyal turians. They saw that their goal had been fulfilled and they were ashamed at the level of underhanded deception that one of their own would resort to. They immediately lay down their weapons and surrendered. Peace was restored, the bloodshed ended, and Cade was hailed as a hero before he was even nineteen years old.

Cade blinked back a set of tears that had began to form around his eyes. Not from the pain of Mardinus' blows – I'd seen him take bullet wounds without so much as flinching. The tears were for something else, something that even the hardest, most ruthless of us were defenseless against.

Every turian in the military above the age of 35 was likely a veteran of the Reaper War. I had guessed that the career sergeant was most definitely one of them. His attitude and cold demeanor towards Cade way back before we'd even left for the engine room had made me suspect that he had also fought on the side of the Seccessionists during the Palaven Rebellions.

Most turians had been Loyalists – Barthilus included. They practically hero-worshipped Cade, lauding him as the 'Hero of the Palaven Rebellions', single-handedly responsible for ending the civil war and halting the spilling of turian blood by turian hands.

Mardinus's actions and words confirmed that he had most definitely fought on the side of the Seccessionists. He had every right to be angry at Cade. While Cipritine and many other major cities and colonies were partially restored, they were not at their former Pre-War glory - might never be. Some were still upset, and did not consider their cause truly finished until Palaven and all of turian space was back to their former glory. Half a decade later, I am willing to bet that some wished that they had never laid down arms.

But maybe nothing they ever did would bring those days back. Maybe to attempt to do so was to disregard all that we had suffered during the war and all that we had learned from it about cooperation, unity, and hope. Some would argue that it might be better to let them stay ruined, let them stand as a monument to everything that the galaxy went through, together.

I don't know, I'm not a philosopher. All I know is that Cade is my friend.

I moved up and pressed the back of my pistol against the turian sergeant's head. His kinetic shields wouldn't stop anything at that range.

"Stop this, sergeant."

Mardinus looked at me and snarled. "He killed this ship's commanding officer, just like he killed his last one! He should be punished!"

I lowered my weapon and deactivated it. I holstered it and instead held out my hand to the angry turian.

He eyed my hand for a full ten seconds before grabbing it, the anger leaving his eyes.

I pulled him to his feet calmly told him the truth.

"Cade didn't shoot him, I did."

His eyes went wide and he immediately glanced at Cade, still on his back and breathing hard. Cade looked at me and then back at the turian sergeant, his eyes glazed with tears.

Mardinus looked back at me and flapped his mandibles in surprise.

"Cade shot the captain's gun, I shot him in the head. He was going to kill engineer Martell, and if he did we'd have no way of destroying this ship. The galaxy would have been put in danger and I cannot allow that to happen," I calmly explained.

The veteran sergeant mulled my words over. I could see them starting to sink in, begin to dispel his rage and fury. His overreaction towards Cade hadn't been out of some kind of misguided loyalty to his captain or in disagreement towards our plan to destroy the ship – it was likely a byproduct of his experiences during the Palaven Rebellions. Mardinus knew that making sure these creatures couldn't make it off was the right move.

Galen let go of Camilla who immediately threw herself atop of Cade. She pulled him to a seated position while Rentea dashed over with a roll of bandages and began to administer aid to my friend.

I ignored them and continued to calmly speak to the turian sergeant. He seemed to shrink with every passing second. This wasn't about the captain, Mardinus believing Cade to be responsible for Farragut's death was merely the last straw that broke the old turian's back. No, this was about old wounds.

"I know you fought in the Reaper War, I know you probably lost people in the Reaper War."

Taloned claws dug into the palms of his hand. Bright blue droplets of blood fell onto the deck.

Mardinus nodded numbly. "My little girl, my wife…"

He balled his fists even tighter and looked down at the deck. All that tension, all that anger had evaporated from his stances, his frame, leaving behind a broken old soldier — one who had lost his family in the war, one who had watched his government abandon the survivors of its own species in favor of helping the people of other species, one who had decided to do something about it and one who had had it all mean absolutely nothing.

I lifted a hand and pointed at my friend. Cade was uncharacteristically silent as I continued to speak on his behalf, his eyes drilled into mine for a second and in that split moment I could see nothing but trust and appreciation.

"He didn't kill your family, he wasn't the one who decided what could be repaired and what couldn't, who had food and who didn't, who had a place to live and who had to sleep wherever they could."

Camilla looked at Cade with eyes full of understanding, sympathy, and something more that I could not name. Cade looked at her and gently took her hand and squeezed it before bringing it to his mouth, kissing it gently.

"He had to shoot his _father_ ," I continued. "He didn't shoot him for glory, he didn't shoot him for fame, he didn't shoot him to destroy everything you fought for, to destroy everything your friends died for."

"He did it to save lives, the lives of his Primarch, the lives of his fellow soldiers, the lives of your Seccessionist leaders, and the lives of everyone else who might have died had the Rebellions continued. He killed his own _father_ to do so."

I turned to my friend, now seated on the ground with the arms of who absolutely had to be his future girlfriend wrapped around him. He was a sniper, a womanizer, a soldier, a Spectre, a damn good friend.

"And they called him 'Hero' for it. They gave him medals and put him in the history books and told their children stories him. They called him 'Hero'. He then became a Spectre when he was barely twenty years old – the youngest to do so since Saren Arterius himself — and since then he's saved thousands of more lives."

"But you know who never, not once, called himself a hero?"

"Cade."


	17. Chapter 17 - Everyone Dies

**Chapter 17 – Everyone Dies**

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0651 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge_

 _13 hours and 51 minutes after Outbreak._

"Thank you for that," Cade sighed. He had survived the encounter with nothing more than a wicked headache. Rentea had cleaned off the blood and checked Cade for a concussion afterwards. She had offered him a couple of turian aspirin analogues but my friend had respectfully declined with a slow shake of his head.

It would only help with the physical pain.

I glanced at the turian sergeant seated numbly in a chair on the other side of the bridge. In contrast to the rapid, purposeful movements of the rest of the survivors as they completed last-minute preparations to leave, Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus was as still as death itself. He was currently seated with his hands were clenched together, his eyes fixed on a singular point on the floor.

"I told him the truth," I replied.

The rest of the survivors gave him a wide berth, but not out of fear or nervousness. The seven-foot tall armored turian looked three times smaller than he did less than ten minutes ago. And ten times as fragile.

Camilla tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and gently rubbed Cade's upper arm. "I still don't understand what you did, why he acted like that. What exactly did you do during the Rebellions?."

Cade and I shared a glance. Not everyone was as well-versed in the recent histories of the galaxies various species as we were. Every turian alive was probably familiar with the events of the Palaven Rebellions and the role Cade played by heart but chances are the rest of the galaxy wasn't unless you went out of your way to learn.

"It's a story for another time. I'll tell you every last bit one day, I promise," Cade told the engineer.

That was some promise. Anyone with access to the extranet could find out what Cade did that day. Only two people knew what Cade had felt or what had been going through his mind as he pulled the trigger on the Seccessionist saboteur, his commanding officer, his father.

Standing alongside us was Galen, who'd been silent the entire time. Judging by the frequent glances he was shooting at the turian sergeant and the way his mandibles would flare briefly for a few centimeters before he quickly retracted them to his face, the sight of the older turian was troubling the young marine. He was likely wracking his mind, wondering if there was anything he could say to his sergeant to make things better.

"Should one of us go talk to him?" Galen asked us. The sergeant had been his rock ever since he'd been assigned to his team. To see him like this must have been disorienting and painful for the young marine.

"Some things can't be fixed," sighed Cade. "His scars aren't the kind of scars that anyone can do anything about."

The young turian cocked his head at the veteran Spectre. "Meaning?"

"It means that whoever told you that time heals all wounds was dead wrong, and sometimes that goes double for words," I finished.

"So we're just going to leave him like that?"

The turian sergeant was still seated on his chair, eyes dead and staring. I've known men like Mardinus, strong, unflappable – a backbone like steel. I knew that honor, duty, and commitment to the cause would eventually bring him back from whatever dark place his interactions with Cade had taken him, but as for fixing him?

He lost his family during the Reaper War, he lost his friends during the Rebellions, and he probably feels betrayed and abandoned by his government. Likely the only thing that allowed him to remain a sane, functional being was the legendary stoicism that his species was famed for.

But no matter how strong you are and how well you think you've coped with it, no matter how much therapy or help or medication you've gotten, I am not sure that anyone can ever truly heal from all of that. I wish that I was wrong or that I was simply a pessimist, but in my experience there were some things you could never come back from.

The truth was, I think the Sergeant was running on borrowed time.

"I'll talk to him," I promised Galen. "The sergeant's a tough son-of-a-bitch, I think he knows Cade didn't do anything wrong, at least not to him. The last fourteen hours have just been fucked up. For everyone."

Galen nodded, satisfied. Camilla looked at the turian sergeant with a sad look in her eyes. She wasn't angry at him, not for beating Cade almost half-to-death. She wasn't well-versed in turian history and how it might have influenced the dynamics between Cade and Vidanor, but she could tell from the anguish in the older turian's eyes that he had not been in his right state of mind when he attacked my friend.

"I hope he's okay," she said.

Cade looked at her and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. He then looked back at me.

"Cloud, seriously, thank you. I don't know if I would have stopped him…"

"You did nothing wrong, Cade. In fact, you did everything right," I replied.

I turned to the engineer, eager to diverge from this line of conversation. "Camilla, is the route plotted and the thrusters ready?"

The engineer nodded. "Yeah, managed to get it all done before that _puta_ went loco." Farragut had finally pushed his luck too far with me. Sometimes one doesn't have the inclination and the energy to play nice when someone is threatening the safety of the galaxy, especially if one has spent the last fourteen hours fighting and evading homicidal space zombies.

"Great. I'm going to touch base with Percival, Murgen and Barthilus, then I'm going to arrange the evac with the SSV that's done you hit the switch, six-second burn with ten minute intermissions, right?"

"Yeah."

Satisfied, I gave her a thumbs-up and turned around. I walked over to where Percival and the two Systems Alliance officers were currently coordinating the rest of the evacuation.

"Percival, what's the deal?"

My friend turned and ran a hand through his blond hair. "We're good to go, everyone's basically packed and Jaelen's samples are secured. Camilla's burn specs means that we have a little over 120 minutes right?"

"126 at the most I'd say. After that we're trapped in the gravity well and our chances of escape are effectively in the single-digits," Barthilus chimed in.

"Great, so once that first burn hits, we set our timers for 126 minutes and hopefully we'll be in one of the hangar bays before it's too late," Percival finished.

Murgen opened up a schematic of the ship on his omni-tool and highlighted one of the many hangar bays roughly halfway down the ship. "How about hangar bay 3-D on deck five? It's only about halfway down the ship and it's almost a straight shot from the main central passageway. We wouldn't have to shove fifty-odd survivors down a mess of cramped corridors."

I immediately shook my head and highlighted a hangar bay a bit further down the ship, closer to the Prometheus labs.

"Negative. Hangar bay 1-D is a better option. There's a retrofitted M-88 Tiger-class Corvette that the geology department aboard this ship uses for asteroid mining operations. It can fit all of the survivors inside, and it has much stronger thrusters than your standard UT-47 Kodiak."

I pulled up a schematic of the Saber and sent it to the officers, then I pulled up a schematic of your standard UT-47 Kodiak dropship and brought it up beside the Tiger. Both were designed to house roughly twelve individuals, but the Saber had a massive cargo compartment that we could use to house the rest of the survivors.

"The SSV Excalibur only has two Kodiaks aboard, so unless we grabbed a pair from another hangar bay and can outfly the speed the emergency thrusters would push the Hippocrates to, we wouldn't be able to get everyone off in a single wave. The Tiger is a better choice."

Murgen and Barthilus both studied the schematics and carefully considered the option. Hangar bay 1-D was some ways further down the ship, and would require traversing down some tight corridors. There were pros and cons to both routes. The main central passageway was exposed whereas the pedestrian corridors lacked room to maneuver.

"The M-88 Tiger requires specialized pilot training, I'm not sure any of the survivors left aboard are rated to fly that thing," Murgen pointed out. Good, it seemed like the Jaeger Captain was buying it.

"I can fly it," I assured him. "Spectres Percival and Kitiarian can fly it as well, albeit to a lesser degree of proficiency."

Percival gave me a weird look. Maybe he was on to me.

"We've run simulations but the only one with actual experience piloting a Tiger is Spectre Cloud. We'll do fine as back-ups, but if we're in Theodore's gravity well then he's going to be the only one who can get us out," my friend told his fellow officers.

Barthilus and Murgen finally conceded to my suggestion. "Okay, we'll head to hangar bay 1-D, board the corvette, open the doors and rendezvous with your ship," the turian Lieutenant-Commander agreed.

"Then it's settled," I nodded, "hangar bay 1-D."

We all nodded to each other and moved to make some last minute preparations. Murgen and Barthilus went to check on the Jaegers and the survivors respectively, while Percival followed behind me as I attempted to raise Val aboard the SSV Excalibur.

"So, hangar bay 1-D, huh?" Percival asked. One of his eyebrows was cocked upwards and his blue eyes gazed steadily at mine.

"Yeah, the SSV Hippocrates is going to be travelling at speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour. The only one here who could fly a UT-47 Kodiak out of another hangar bay and into another is probably just me. We don't have the time to make two or three trips. We need the Tiger."

"Mhmm," agreed Percival, "plus by the time we get everyone down to the hangar bay and get everything warmed up, we'll already probably only have maybe ten minutes left before we're firmly in the well."

I walked up to the holo-display and took one last look at the route and the adjustments that Camilla had programmed. To distract myself, I began to commit the minute details of the route to memory, specifically the point in which we'd be firmly entrapped in Theodore's gravity well and escape would no longer be an option.

"Too many walking wounded, and we still don't know how many more of these things are onboard."

My fellow Spectre crossed his arms and nodded. "It's a good plan. How'd you know that there was still a Tiger on board?"

I pulled up an inventory list on my omni-tool and sent it to my friend. He opened it and flipped down to the equipment list for the Geology division aboard the SSV Hippocrates. I then sent him a maintenance log dated three hours before the outbreak had occurred. It showed that the Tiger had just undergone maintenance and was ready for its next run, which was originally slated to be two days from now.

"I perused the inventory lists sometime after Murgen told us we couldn't enable the self-destruct. Cameras went down after the outbreak started a while back so I haven't actually eyeballed it, but I think it's still there," I told him.

I opened up a channel and hailed the SSV Excalibur. "Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova, come in."

" _Cloud, it's Val. You ready to come home?"_

I smiled and rubbed my eyes tiredly. "Just about. Have to tidy up the place first, we're going to use the ship's emergency thrusters to push it into the star. It'll take roughly two hours."

I sent Val the plans and the navigational data Camilla had prepared, along with a waypoint somewhere just outside the line. "Can you arrive and hold at this location within the next two hours?"

" _I can be there in half that. You want me to prep the Kodiaks?"_

"Negative, we'll be taking an M-88 Tiger, but do have triage on standby, we've got walking wounded."

" _Roger that Cloud. Two hours, don't keep a girl waiting."_

I smiled once more. The helmsman of the SSV Excalibur would have our backs to hell and back. "Wouldn't dare, thanks Val."

" _So that's what a girl's gotta do, huh? Val out."_

I signed off and turned to Percival. The big man had a broad, knowing smile on his face. A Neanderthal could probably write a paper on what was going on in his mind right now.

"Technically you're not Systems Alliance…" he pointed out.

I scoffed. "And technically you're not my mother, either. But it sure doesn't stop you from being an overbearing pain in the ass."

"You smiled twice in a row, you never smile twice in a row."

"Uh, the asari twins back on Thessia?"

Percival sighed and shook his head dramatically. "Just when I was about to give up hope for Cade, in walked Camilla. I tell you buddy, I'm a born-again believer. I believe one day that the both of you will have what Gwen and I have."

I shook my head. "You'll have a long time to wait, friend."

The big Spectre chuckled and crossed his arms. "No offence Cloud, but between you and Cade? I would have bet my balls that it would have been you first. There's hope yet."

There was a lot of water under that bridge, to the point where I sometimes forgot that a bridge was even there. The problem was I didn't know how much of it I could get help for, how much of it was fixable, and how much of it was keeping me in a state of perpetual drowning. Being a Spectre didn't really give you the luxury of time to find out. Percival was one of the rare ones who had managed to make it work—with a civilian no less.

Over the years I'd told my friends almost everything there was to know about me. Everything that I could remember I chose to divulge to my two friends rather than some doctor or bartender or dancer. I'd like to believe that somehow the fault didn't lie within myself but rather in the line of profession that I'd chosen to give myself to.

The former N7-turned-Spectre clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"Listen… I know how things went down for you in the past… and I also know how things with Sarah didn't work out the way you wanted them to…"

I cocked an eyebrow. "I knew Dr. Messner for less than a day, Perc—"

"—Don't bullshit me, I'm not an idiot," he said brusquely. "Look, Cloud. Don't stop looking for things in this galaxy to cherish just because you're afraid that someone somewhere is going to take it away from you, because eventually you're going to run out of things in this galaxy worth fighting for."

I stared pensively at the display. The information on it was long memorized. Truth be told, I just needed an excuse not to look my friend in the eye.

"I let her down, Lancelot. Back at the data archives I could have saved her. One of the saboteurs blew open a hole in the ceiling and her husband found his way inside..."

I chewed my lip, every word was a struggle the likes of which I wanted to run from, so badly. Percival didn't say a word. It wasn't often that I addressed him by his first name. He'd learn long ago that whatever came afterwards was usually not something to dismiss lightly.

"… Except it wasn't him anymore. He was one of those things – a Changer. She saw him and froze up, Perc."

My armor's temperature regulators must have taken a hit during that last fight because the cold was becoming more and more noticeable. I crossed my arms against my chest and continued on.

"One of the saboteurs had the data. They were trying to escape. I had a choice, save her or save the data. I made the wrong call. The saboteurs got away and she died because I chose wrong."

The ambient noise of the bridge, the talking, the sounds that the survivors were making as they prepared to leave seemed to fade all at once, like someone had turned down a giant dial. Suddenly I felt as if I was the only person left aboard this ship.

Once again I could see her as clearly as if she were right there in front of me. She was on her back, the front of her labcoat was mangled and stained with her blood. A pair of massive claw marks had mortally wounded her – the first one had gone through her throat, the second one through her chest. It was all so vivid that I could see her right there, right in front of me. If I reached out I could almost touch her.

She was there, but something was different. Her eyes were different, her expression was different.

Gone was the expression of pain, of fear, of terror at being so close to the void and the unending silence thereafter.

Instead she looked at me softly, gently. There was something else in her gaze. What was it?

I blinked in confusion. Her wounds began to disappear before my very eyes. The blood vanished, her throat repaired itself, and she slowly got to her feet. She lifted her hand and gave me a small, sad little wave. She smiled and looked at me.

Beside her I could see her husband. No longer a monster, now a man once again. He gave me a nod and looked pointedly at one of my utility pouches.

I reached down and opened it. Inside I felt the smooth surface of an old photo. Who still used paper photos in this day and age? I withdrew my hand and re-sealed the pouch.

I watched as ghost-Sarah entwined her fingers with her husbands' and smiled at him. He smiled back at her, and together they looked at me one last time. Both of their eyes were now filled with what had just a short while ago been only in ghost-Sarah's eyes. Together they smiled, and together they turned and walked towards a tear of bright, white light that suddenly appeared behind them.

They stepped through and vanished. I strained my eyes and squinted, trying to look past the white light and see where they'd gone, but it was too bright. I brought a hand up to shield my face but it wasn't enough. Annoyed, I took a step forward, intent on following them.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back, pulling me out of reverie and back onto this godforsaken ship.

"Cloud? Cloud! What are you doing?"

I whipped my head around. Percival was standing behind me, a look of utter confusion on his face. His eyes were clouded with worry and he kept looking past me, trying to see what had drawn my attention. I turned back around. I was still standing infront of the console and the holo-projection displaying the route.

Damn those drugs. Fucking Minagen.

"Nothing, thought I spotted something weird with the route, but it all checks out. Did you say something?" I told him.

Percival held his gaze for a few more seconds, a gaze that I returned innocently and unflinchingly. After a few moments he seemed to be satisfied, because he nodded and took his hand off my shoulder.

"I said it wasn't your fault. Going after the data was the right call, and the harder one. What was on that drive had immeasurable value – could potentially save millions of lives, help us stop what's happening on Earth and Thessia and stop what's happening here from happening on every other planet which has those Reaper cores. I'm sure Sarah would have understood."

I smiled even though deep down, I didn't feel as if I'd made the right call. I smiled nonetheless to reassure my friend, who I knew only had my best interests and my well-being at heart. Percival was the closest thing I had to an older brother or a father figure.

I smiled to try and convince myself that my decision had been the correct one, and that I could move past failing to save Sarah and focus on trying to save the millions of lives that needed me now.

"So… the Flight Lieutenant, huh? Easy on the eyes…"

My fellow Spectre smiled back, except his smile was colored with relief and happiness.

"Yeah, easy on the eyes. And don't tell Gwen I said that."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0709 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Bridge_

 _14 hours and 9 minutes after Outbreak, 126 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108_

"Initiating the first pulse! Everyone brace for maneuver!" Camilla called out.

The strength of the sudden acceleration caught me off guard. The force generated by the emergency thrusters overwhelmed the artificial gravity generators and the inertia negators and cause the whole deck to shake and seize.

I could feel the Hippocrates violently speed up and steer towards the right. I fell onto the ground, the g-forces generated by the acceleration keeping me pinned to the deck. Almost three-quarters of the survivors had fallen as well, unprepared at the force of the maneuver. Percival, Cade, Captain Murgen and a couple of the Jaegers remained upright, all of them having found hand holds before Camilla had started up the thrusters.

After six seconds the g-force and the speed faded as the inertia negators finally caught up and kicked in. I booted up the clock function on my omni-tool and immediately set a countdown for ten minutes. Those burn phases were problematic. They were stronger than I'd anticipated and would make it much harder to make it to my objective and return to the hangar bay.

A gloved, taloned hand appeared in the corner of my eye. My eyes followed it upwards to see a tall, grey-armored turian with a bent mandible and red facepaint standing above me.

I accepted Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus' offer of assistance and pulled myself to my feet.

"Hell of a ride, huh?"

"No worse than the ship evacuation training they give you in the Hierarchy. Most modules assume that your drive core is irreparably damaged and your inertia negators are offline," Mardinus rasped.

Around us the rest of the survivors were all getting back to their feet. Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus and Captain Murgen were rallying the rest of the armed defenders and making immediate preparations to move out. Doctors Rentea T'lana and Jaelen Veers were helping the more seriously wounded get to their feet and make ready to leave.

I looked at the turian sergeant. His gaze was fixed on a certain other turian who was helping a female engineer to her feet.

"I'm not good at this, sergeant," I began.

Mardinus looked at me and gave a light, forced laugh. "Me neither, Spectre… me neither."

"For what it's worth, he's not angry. He sympathizes. Everyone has their share of scars, and anyone with those scars won't take it personally when those scars sometimes make us do stupid, irrational things."

The veteran sergeant's mandibles twitched in amusement and he turned to me for a brief moment. "As long as those stupid, irrational things are within reason, right?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "But honestly, punching the crap out of Cade is something that many, many people struggle to refrain from."

Mardinus gave a laugh – a real one this time. His flanged two-tone voice meant that his laugh was felt more than it was heard, like a strong bass.

"Your friend is quite the turian. His prowess in battle and his skill is second to none, and he is still quite young. He fights with a cunning that few turians possess and it makes him a dangerous opponent. He could have killed me at any moment during my attack but he chose not to."

"He is loyal to his friends, dedicated to the cause of good, and by all measures the absolute paragon of what a turian should strive to be. He did not deserve my treatment of him."

The turian dropped his gaze to the floor and sighed. It wasn't the sigh of a fit, turian marine in his late forties or early fifties. It was the sigh of a broken old soldier.

"I just miss my family. I miss my friends, I miss my wife, my child. Spirits, the pain of their loss has not diminished even after all these years, and it has made me act shamefully."

I frowned and placed a hand reassuringly on his shoulder. "No one can fault you for acting as you did. Not many of us served during the Reaper Wars. We didn't experience the horrors of it and many of us weren't old enough to understand the effects that it left on the galaxy."

"Cade understands. He lost his sister too during the Rebellions and he had to kill his own father to save his people. He knows what that kind of loss can drive a man to do."

Mardinus raised his eyes and looked back at my friend, currently helping young Galen check his armor, Camilla close beside him.

Cade looked up and saw the sergeant looking back at him. He nodded at the marine.

Mardinus nodded back and turned to me once more. "Thank you, Cloud, for showing compassion to an old man. You could have killed me too, could have easily shot me for trying to kill your friend and fellow Spectre."

I grinned. "Truth be told, I was kind of living vicariously through you at the time."

We both laughed.

* * *

 _January 24_ _th_ _, 2211, 0749 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Pedestrian Corridor 14F_

 _14 hours and 49 minutes after Outbreak, 86 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108_

I shot a pair of Corpsers with my Snakebite just as they were about to pounce on a group of surviving bridge officers. Thanks to the exceptional efforts of the surviving Jaegers and security personnel, we had not lost a single soul on our way to the hangar bay.

Progress had been slow and the creatures seemed to be crawling out of every nook, cranny and air vent hell-bent on turning us into more of the mindless abominations. We had endured three more additional pulses, and each time they had occurred we'd been forced to defend ourselves from a wave of Corpsers who seemed to understand that we were at our most vulnerable during those six-second burn phases.

Teewin moped up the Crawlers that had begun to rip their way out of the Corpser's I had just shot. The last one burst in a shower of sparks and metal bits just in time for the next burn phase to begin.

" _We've got a burn phase coming up. Everyone, hold onto something!"_ Camilla called out on our radios.

The ship lurched again and half of us were thrown to our feet. I grabbed the lip of a shattered air vent and used it to steady myself throughout the duration of the six-second burn.

I reset the timer on my omni-tool just as the phase ended. People began to climb to their feet and a fresh new wave of howls seemed to erupt around us.

A series of light scratching noises and red and blue lights came from the depths of the vent that I was currently holding on to. I turned towards it just in time to see the face of a former human-now-Corpser appear and try to pull itself over the lip of the vent, snarling and drooling and howling.

I wreathed my fist in bright blue flames and punched it squarely in the face. It lost its grip and fell back into the vent, where more and more snarling could be heard. I triggered my last sticky grenade and dropped it into the vent behind it.

Murgen and Jaeger Team One had taken point, while Accer and Team Two were the rearguard. Cade and I each had a flank, with the rest of the remaining security personnel divided between us. We all stopped to defend against a fresh new wave of horrors trying to capitalize on the unsteadiness that the burn phase had precipitated.

After about four minutes of hard fighting, we had killed the last of the creatures and could now again move on.

We reached an intersection. The right path would take us all the way down the hangar bay 1-D. We'd need to take it and travel for maybe another twenty minutes at our pace to reach the hangar bay and the corvette. The left path would take us to a couple of storage rooms and the middle one would only lead us to the southern parts of the ship, such as the Prometheus labs.

I opened up a group-wide channel. "Hey Percival, Murgen, take the right fork."

" _We know, don't worry,"_ Percival replied.

"Okay, I'm going to cover one of the other two branches, make sure nothing can hit us while we're herding the survivors through. Cade, can you cover the other one?"

" _Roger that, which one do you want?"_ my friend asked.

"Doesn't matter. How about I take the middle one and you take the left?"

" _Sounds good."_

"Great. Let's move up and get in position and have the survivors double-time it. I don't fancy being caught in another burn phase while we're stuck in that intersection, with three ways of being attacked."

" _Agreed,"_ Percival said. " _Move up and I'll signal for us to hurry."_

I nodded and immediately began pushing my way past the throng of survivors, Cade doing the same on the opposite side. Our pace was hindered by the fact that we were only as fast as our slowest member. There were about a score of survivors who required assistance to walk, and even then they couldn't move all that fast.

We pushed our way past and headed for the intersection ahead of the group. As I passed through the front, I made eye contact with Jaelen. The intelligent salarian had heard our brief discussion over the radio. If anyone had figured things out it would be him. He nodded at me and I nodded back. Like me, he knew that in order for us to ensure that no one died in vain, we would need to gather as much intel as possible before we left.

"Cade, head about twenty meters down your way and I'll head twenty down mine. We'll stay 'til the survivors are through and then rejoin the rearguard with Accer."

" _Sounds good."_

I slung my Snakebite onto my back and pulled out my Predator pistol instead. It would be more useful if a wave of the creatures decided to swarm me, I'd be able to use my biotics more effectively with my free hand to contain and destroy them. I turned back and watched as the mess of survivors moved down the right path.

Accer, Teewin and the marines from the Excalibur were at the rear. Like I'd hoped, they'd demonstrated that they could work seamlessly together. They seemed to have accepted the young biotic Jaeger as their new commanding officer despite his relative youth. Rake, Soph, Jay and Fly had all been with me since the start of this fiasco and I was glad to see them in capable hands. I couldn't have asked for better marines.

As their party moved on, Accer lingered to give me one last look. He saluted with the stump of his arm and grinned, a gesture that I returned in full. Men like him gave me hope for the future. Hope that should those such as Cade, Percival or I join the ranks of Bradford in the pursuit of galactic safety, there'd be others to take up the torch.

The last of the survivors moved down.

"Hey Cade, let's actually hold position until the next burn phase, make sure nothing hits them from the rear," I said.

" _Sounds like a plan, should have brought a magazine."_

I chuckled and shook my head. I then doubled-checked my armor systems – tactical cloak, kinetic shields, temperature regulators, trauma diagnostics and biofeeds – to ensure that everything was operational, then I ensured that all my weapons and both of my Talon combat knives were in working order.

Then I muted my radio. The indicator lights would tell me if I was receiving calls and I'd still be able to receive texts, but I wouldn't hear or see them unless I chose to. That should buy me some time.

I activated my Tactical Cloak and left.

* * *

 _January 24_ _rd_ _, 2211. 0756 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Containment Airlock 1_

 _14 hours and 56 minutes after Outbreak, 79 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108_

Had it only been fifteen hours?

I stared at the massive set of doors that lead into the Prometheus Lab. Beyond the doors lay darkness. Not absolute darkness, I could see some semblance of emergency lighting within the labs themselves, but a different kind of darkness – the darkness that chilled the very soul, the darkness beneath the bed, the darkness that wasn't the absence of light but the incomprehensibility of the unnatural.

It was hard to believe it had only been fifteen hours ago that this whole mess started. It had felt like a lifetime since then.

I looked around me. The giant, ragged hole where the Chimera had crawled out of was still there. The flares that the marines and I had thrown around the room were now cold and no longer gave out any light.

The Containment Airlock was littered with bodies. Most of them belonged to Corpsers – dead, tattered, half-metallic monsters. Many of them lay wreathed in a halo of black and blue fluid from the bullet wounds that we'd inflicted to put them down, and several had been completely torn apart, courtesy of my biotic explosions.

I made my way over to where the turian security guard with the gaping hole in his chest still lay. He lay in exactly the same spot and in exactly the same way as he had when we had come across him so long ago. The only difference was that his skin was starting to take a greyer, chalky color and his plates seemed more dull and stone-like. The stench of decay was much more pervasive now, he was likely in the early stages of decomposition.

It was weird coming back here. Like going back to your bedroom after a long semester abroad – everything was as you left it, but none of it seemed familiar.

I moved on and hovered outside the threshold of the Prometheus Labs. The darkness beyond stared back at me like a living, breathing creature, wordlessly communicating with me. Something kept me rooted in place. Fear, anxiety, maybe a dozen different things that a trained shrink could name but I could only shrug at. No matter, whatever it was it was impeding my progress and starting to piss me off.

My alarm hit zero and I felt the sudden lurch of acceleration as the emergency thrusters fired for the sixth time.

I was unprepared, with nothing to brace myself. The resulting movement threw me to my feet, I landed on all fours and drove the palms of my hands into the deck, fighting against the acceleration. The G-forces threatened to lay me out on the deck but I resisted.

Eventually it passed and I clambered to my feet. I sighed in relief and reset the timer once again. As I did I noticed that Percival and Cade and even Camilla had left no less than a dozen messages in the last five minutes. I didn't have any more time to waste. I needed to retrieve that CPU.

Fear, anxiety, whatever – it could all wait. I shoved it all deep down and readied my Predator Pistol. With one last deep breath I moved over the threshold of the doors and into the Prometheus Lab itself.

The Labs were an absolute mess. The main hall was littered with bodies so torn up that even they couldn't be repurposed by the Crawlers into more of the synthetic-organic killing machines.

In the wake of the outbreak, everyone had tried desperately to escape. Many of the scientists had chosen the main hall and that had made them easy prey for the monsters within.

I panned my Pistol from side to side, my eyes darting back and forth, mindful of any and all possible vectors of ambush. The emergency lighting wasn't particularly bright, but it did a good enough job of illuminating the hall for me. It also did a good job of throwing every single body, severed limb and pool of blood in dark shadows.

The main hall would take me straight to the activation chamber, the Core, the CPU and presumably Olivia. Back at engine room she had given me the data drive and had asked me to find her. The drive had contained a video partially describing an anomaly in a certain subset Reaper Cores and was meant to act as a clue to her location. I had surmised that she currently awaited me in the activation chamber down in the Labs, waiting beside the Reaper Core and the CPU that she was likely banking on me trying to retrieve.

Which meant that I could be walking into a trap.

She had had the opportunity to leave. The rest of her saboteurs had departed some time ago, aboard a massive cruiser called the Exitus. Thanks to my efforts, not many of them would be returning home. I'd denied them the data drive, wounded the turian, thrown a wrench in the plans of whoever Mordred was, and hopefully killed the insane, twisted salarian.

And now I was going to make it two for two.

The emergency lighting didn't quite extend to the halls that branched off from the main hall, leaving them bathed in darkness. Any number of creatures could be lurking in them, ready to tear me to pieces, but I didn't have the luxury to go and check each one.

The activation chamber was ahead, I could see the doors. They lay ripped open, likely the work of one of the Changers that the Core had created upon activation. Just a couple dozen more meters and I'd be inside.

The hall widened up at this location. Bodies and blood were the dominating feature for this part of the hall, but enough fixtures remained for me to see that it had once been a large vestibule that acted as a sort of hub for the entire lab. Many hallways fed into the area, offices studded the sides and more than a few security booths were present around its perimeter.

I was halfway through when an intense wave of pressure brought me to my knees and a cacophony of voices welled up in my head. I went down with a gasp of pain and fought desperately to stand back up, to keep moving.

The chittering seemed to come from every direction at once. I looked around with, my eyes watering in pain, trying to see where the Chimera was approaching from but failing to do so. With a supreme show of will I pushed myself to my feet with a yell and stumbled a few more steps towards the activation chamber.

A wave of pressure knocked me down again. The chittering intensified and washed over me like a wave of static. I dropped my pistol and my fingers immediately began to scrabble for the M-920 Cain hooked to my back. I'd carried it with me all the way from the armory in preparation for this encounter. One shot, one 25 gram slug at a speed of five kilometers an hour.

As if it recognized my intentions, the voices in my head grew even louder and angrier. I gave a loud, pained cry and collapsed onto the deck. The pressure was so intense – so painful – that I'd abandoned my attempt to grab the Cain and instead grabbed desperately at my head. I writhed on the deck and screamed. Eventually the pain, the voices, the pressure, all of it became too much to bear and everything went black.

The alarm of my omni-tool pulled me back, indicating that the seventh phase had passed. I flipped onto my stomach and wearily raised my head.

Down the way I came stalked the Chimera. The pressure and pain were still there, but had receded into levels more manageable and much less debilitating. I struggled to my knees and spat out a bit of blood that had appeared in my mouth.

The creature was massive, forty feet of twisted flesh, metal plating, and jagged metal spikes and nearly eight feet tall at the shoulder. Its large red headplate was pitted and scorched from where my sticky grenade had detonated back during our first encounter and wounded it, tearing off one of its pincers.

It silently padded towards me. Strangely, I didn't get the sense I was in danger – no. Its fingers barely left a sound on the cold, metal deck. Unlike its smaller brethren the Chimera's eyes had a highly-developed sentience to them that chilled me to my core.

It stopped maybe twenty feet away from me and sat back on its massive hind-legs. Every cell in my body screamed at me to get up, to run away from this twisted, metallic horror, but curiosity and confusion kept me rooted in place. It wasn't trying to rip me limb from limb. Its long, sinuous tail with its jagged barb at the end wasn't actively trying to impale me like it had countless other victims. Instead it was coiled around it like how a cat might sit.

The voices and the whispers in my head intensified for a brief moment before they began to form recognizable, distinct words.

 _Save… us…_

I froze. It could speak. Either it could speak or I was growing mad. Maybe my brain had finally succumbed to all the pain and pressure and loss and I had finally and utterly lost it.

 _Save us, Tar'elessar…_

"What are you? What do you want?" I whispered.

The Chimera flexed in place and then slowly rose to stand on all fours. Its barbed tail swept back and forth as its six eyes bore into me. The chittering ceased and silence took to the air on swift, rotted wings.

Instead of words came a series of images and emotions, tearing through my head like a hurricane. Hundreds of images flashed through my eyes in seconds. A planet, then two, then hundreds. Beings whose features I couldn't make out. Voices speaking in a language I could not recognize. Laughter, happiness, joy. The birth of a child, two individuals embracing.

Then fire. Fire and blood and darkness. The sunset on a dozen worlds. Screaming, shouting, pain, and fear. Long, majestic spires set aflame, knocked down. Large, metallic claws of some sort. Red, red eyes, red light, the shouting of a mother for her child, a figure cradling a broken body. Above it all, a loud, piercing horn.

And finally Earth and Thessia and Rannoch and Tuchanka and Sur'kesh. Human, quarian, krogan—hundreds of thousands of faces began to blur and distort, their features slowly twisting. Blue light and red eyes. Howling, snarling, hunger… a desire, a supreme desire to live.

And like a summer storm the barrage of images and emotions ceased, leaving me drained and tired and feeling as if I could sleep for a decade.

I gasped and stared at the creature in horror. The images I hadn't recognized except for the last few, but the emotions? Those were unmistakable – as timeless and as universal as death itself. Whatever these creatures were, whatever this thing was, the galaxy and its inhabitants were its food. It wanted to consume, to feed. It was hungry.

 _Will you… save us… Tar'elessar?_

Its fingers curled against the deck. Though they lacked talons or claws and were about the size of my own, the sheer weight of the creature caused them to form a series of gouges in the polysteel metal. Its long, sinuous tail was still now, its lone pincer absolutely motionless. Only its six eyes showed any signs of movement. They peered expectantly at me, blinking one at a time as it awaited my response.

I'd seen what that tail can do. In the blink of an eye that tail could shoot directly at me. My armor wouldn't stand a chance against its barbed, jagged edge. If it didn't decide to kill me that way, it could simply pick me up and tear me in half like a wishbone. It could pounce on me and break my spine, or it could shatter my ribcage with a swipe of its muscled forelimb.

It also wanted off this ship. It wanted me to save it. It wanted to be let loose in _my_ galaxy so that it could eat, consume, destroy.

I got up onto one knee and spat on the deck in front of it. "Fuck you," I snarled.

And like a summer storm its fury came back in full force. The pressure and the voices in my head resumed with punishing intensity and the cacophony of chittering reached a crescendo. It lifted its head and its human-like mouth let out a terrifyingly human-sounding wail.

I cried out in pain and fell down again. I screwed my eyes shut and awaited the end. I wanted so badly to die on my feet but the pressure and the pain was simply too much.

Images and pictures flashed through my mind once more, except this time they were my own memories. Images of Cade, of Percival, of Accer and Val and Camilla. A mischievous smile, dark-brown hair and hazel-colored eyes. Sarah and her husband, the photo of her child.

A part of me wished that I'd been able to apologize to my friends for leaving without a word, wished that I'd gotten another chance to see Cade and Camilla bicker over something trivial, for Percival to lecture me on something incredibly stupid that I'd done, to sit in that dingy old bar back at the Citadel after a particularly rough mission and drink myself half-blind one last time.

I remembered a technician who'd been too scared to let her friends in, who'd locked them out and who'd died alone.

 _Get up…_

I opened my eyes. Maybe it was the residual drugs in my system, or a stress-induced hallucination, or some side effect of the abnormal amount of dopamine my brain was likely releasing in anticipation of death, but I could see my mother standing above me, one hand extended, reaching out to me.

She looked just like the last time I'd seen her. As far as pre-death auditory and visual hallucinations went, this was a much nicer way to go. Sure, maybe I didn't die on my feet, but this was the next best thing.

 _Your friends need you…_

"I'm so tired, mom," I gasped.

 _I know, baby. But your friends need you, your family needs you…_

I couldn't die here, not now, not like this. I was going to get that Reaper CPU and destroy these fucking creatures and leave this fucking ship and stop the saboteurs from carrying out their messed-up plan.

 _Get up_

I snarled and pulled myself to my feet, fighting back against the pain and the pressure. My amp crackled on as a torrent of biotic blue energy began to encase me in a fiery vortex. I could feel it coursing through my veins like fire, every cell in my being tingling with biotic power. Every hair on my body rose up from the static electrical discharge generated by my powerful mass effect fields. Dozens of fiery-blue tendrils encased me in a massive corona of biotic energy.

The Chimera's chittering intensified and it began to run towards me. With a scream I brought my hands together and ripped them apart. The blue corona around me detonated violently and a whirlwind of biotic forces shot around the hall.

The bulk of it slammed into the Chimera and threw it back nearly two dozen meters. It scurried to its feet and shook its head, then tilted his headplate towards me and began to charge.

I grabbed the M-920 Cain from my back and activated it. In half a second it had extended into its full length and shape. I jammed the stock into my shoulder and aimed it towards the creature. I pressed down on the trigger and the weapon began to charge.

The creature was less than a dozen meters away from me now. I gritted my teeth and held my ground. The meter on the side of my weapon filled up and an indicator light went from red to green, indicating that it was ready to fire. I released the trigger.

A bright flash of light seared into my coronas, followed by what sounded like a thunderbolt. A ball of white energy slammed into the Chimera, right where its right shoulder was. The detonation sheared off its right foreleg and parts of its chest. The foreleg that had once been Tago Veers disintegrated in a fiery ball of light and heat.

The resulting explosion knocked me at least five meters back. My ass hit the deck with a clatter and my shields whined as they depleted instantly. The front of my armor was singed and my biofeedback meters indicated that I had suffered serious contusions on my upper chest and arms. My ears rang, I felt something wet trickle down my face and when I moved my hand to touch it my fingers came away covered in blood.

I coughed and struggled to my feet, I discarded the empty M-920 Cain and scurried over to where my pistol lay on the deck and grabbed it.

I blinked a few times to get rid of the after-images that the detonations had left in my eyes. The smell of charred flesh and smoke lingered like a blanket over the hall. I looked around. My mother was nowhere to be seen. Once my vision had fully returned, I looked to where the Chimera had fallen.

It was weakly trying to pull itself up onto its remaining limbs. I aimed at it and emptied my pistol at the creature, but it hid itself behind its metal-plated tail. Jagged metal edges and torn cables marked the spot where its right arm used to be and it had a series of scorch marks running up its right flank and neck. A large chunk of its headplate was missing as well, and it was heavily bleeding a blue, oily fluid from its various wounds.

My predator overheated and I fumbled for a heatsink. My fingers scratched dumbly at my combat webbing that housed it as I struggled to recover from the effects of the M-920 Cain.

I was finally forced to look down and eyeball it. Eventually I managed to take it out and slide it into my Predator pistol, but by the time I looked back up the Chimera was long gone.

A trail of oily blue blood marked the path it had taken. I considered going after it, but I was in no condition to fight it. My amp was burned out, I'd need to replace it with a spare once I'd gotten back onto the Excalibur.

The Cain was now nothing more than a flashy, one-point-eight million credit paperweight and I don't think I was in any condition to use my Snakebite effectively, not while I was still seeing double.

I sighed and decided to let it go. In my current shape any confrontation between me and the Chimera would likely end in my premature demise. I ran a dirty gauntlet through my hair and rubbed my eyes. As I did I couldn't help but notice that my rough stubble was getting worse. Shaving it would be the first thing I did once I got off this fucking ship.

I didn't know how I had survived that but I had. The headaches and the pressure that the creature generated within me had been beyond crippling in each and every single encounter that I'd had with it prior to this one. The Minagen X9 in my system had to have been depleted maybe an hour or an hour and a half ago, making the raw display of biotic power that I'd displayed a surprising twist.

I never considered myself an exceptional biotic, nor an exceptional marksman, an exceptional close-quarters fighter or an exceptional anything. By rights I didn't think that I'd survive that encounter. Maybe it was all the adrenaline from the heat of the moment. Maybe it was the threat that I knew that these creatures posed to the galaxy, or maybe it was just sheer luck. Maybe it was something else.

"Thanks mom," I said out loud.

"No problem," a voice replied.

I whirled around. Standing like a sentinel in front of the entrance to the activation chamber was a slim, familiar silhouette. Her sleek black, form-fitting armor which had once been new and pristine was now pitted and scarred, just like mine was. Even the saboteurs had not been exempt from the trials aboard the ship.

Her helmet was off, allowing a cascade of red hair to fall around her shoulders. She was very tall for a woman, perhaps as tall as I was. Her stance was arrogant, her Nightbringer blade was sheathed on her back and her hands were on both hips. Dried flakes of blood covered parts of her armor and a bruise discolored the skin on her otherwise flawless cheek where I'd elbowed her, back in the data archives.

The scar that she had given me on my left cheek burned. Blue static danced around my fingertips and I could feel my heart thumping wildly in anticipation at the fight to come, sending blood throughout my body, bringing me to full awareness and dispelling the pain from the fight with the Chimera.

She cocked an eyebrow in an amused look and glanced below my armored belt.

"Is that a spare Predator or are you just happy to see me?"

I held up a finger to shush her. I grabbed the last syringe I'd taken from the medical deck and injected it into an emergency induction port somewhere around my collar armor. The synthetic adrenaline hit my bloodstream and flooded my systems. I'd be running on borrowed time, but hopefully it'd just be enough for me to go three for three on bad guys. I'm counting the Chimera as a win, fuck that thing.

"We're doing this, right? This is what you wanted?" I asked.

Olivia smiled at me and pulled the Nightbringer blade from her sheath. She drew it with a flourish and held it out in front of her, pointing the tip at me.

"I'm just giving you what _you_ want, Romeo. A pseudo-catharsis to all the scars and feelings you've acquired in your time aboard this lovely ship."

Okay Sigmund Freud, no need to get personal.

I placed my own hands on my hip and stared her down. "You could have left, you know, or you could have gone with the rest of your friends. Instead you're going to die aboard this ship."

She let the tip drop to the floor and smiled again, this time all teeth and ice. "Maybe. Or maybe we'll die together."

"I'm just saying. Staying doesn't make sense."

"Love isn't supposed to make sense."

My hands went from my hips to the handles of the two Talon combat knives I had strapped to my lower back. I drew them and twirled them around my palms once before bringing both of them up in a tip-down guard position. Olivia grabbed her sword in both hands and brought it beside her head, blade horizontal with the floor and the tip facing me.

I brought one leg behind me and kept my other leg pointed ahead. I loosened up my shoulders and arms but tightened up my grip on my knives. "Do we really need to say anything before we start?"

"Love is silent."


	18. Chapter 18 - Season One Finale

**Chapter 18 – Season One Finale**

* * *

 _January 24_ _rd_ _, 2211. 0756 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Prometheus Labs_

 _15 hours and 19 minutes after Outbreak, 56 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108_

We simultaneously began to sprint towards each other, blades extended. Only one of us would leave this ship alive and it wasn't going to be her.

The countdown on my omni-tool hit zero maybe four strides in, the eighth burn phase had began in earnest. I kept my eyes trained on Olivia as we were both flung to the deck by the sudden g-forces and struggled against the acceleration that threatened to floor the both of us.

After six seconds it passed once more. We both scrambled to our feet as fast as we could and resumed our run at each other.

On our first pass Olivia opted with a wide, sweeping horizontal swing of her sword. I anticipated the movement and slid into a slide moments before her blade could connect with my neck. I tried to slash at her ankles as I slid past her but she deftly sidestepped out of the way.

I scrambled once more to my feet just in time to meet her second charge. I parried the downward swing she'd thrown her monomolecular blade into with my own knives. Her foot lashed out, trying to catch me in the groin but I blocked it with my shin. Before I could counter-attack she pirouetted away and brought her blade up in a defensive stance and wearily began circling me.

From our past encounters she knew that I was faster, stronger, and more skilled than she was. Her only advantage now was the fact that I was drained from my encounter with the Chimera, and the fact that she had a longer striking range than I did thanks to her blade.

I was a bit slower than usual, and unfortunately not fast enough to slip past her guard and get into extreme close quarters. Once I was close, I could make short work of her with my knives, but she seemed to be treating me much more cautiously than she had in our previous fights. She was going to try and tire me out.

I ran at her again, unwilling to waste more time. I aimed a quick feint at her face and then a slice at her neck, trying to force her guard away from her legs. Her blade shot up to defend her upper torso and in that moment I tried to go low and cut at her legs. I had to reduce her speed or she'd wear me out. God I wished that I could stasis her right now but my amp was still fried.

She jumped away just in time and gave a little laugh. "That's dirty," she smirked.

"I aim to please," I growled. Fucking bitch and her clichés.

Olivia reformed her guard and smiled at me. "Unfortunately for you, I like dirty."

I ran at her again. This time I jumped and threw a kick at her face but she slipped underneath it. I immediately followed up with another pair of slashes and a stab, but she parried both and sidestepped the last. I panted laboriously and pressed my attack. She stayed on the defensive, keeping ever so slightly out of range. If I could wear her down faster than she could wear me down, then just maybe she'd slip up and I could end it.

Eventually I couldn't maintain my pace any longer, my movements were growing more and more sluggish and the pain from my final encounter with the Chimera was starting to finally catch up to me. Olivia landed a clean hit on my right forearm, right below my elbow where I had nothing but the undersuit to protect me. My blood rained down on the deck like crimson rain. I gasped in pain and triggered my Tactical Cloak.

I used the reprieve to catch my breath. The female saboteur had a flushed, ecstatic look on her face but otherwise seemed to be in good shape. I on the other hand was flagging, hard. The synthetic adrenaline wasn't going to be helping me for much longer.

"Sounds like you're having a rough time keeping it up, champ," she teased. "Need a breather?"

I didn't respond, instead opting to use the moment to catch my breath. I tried to move closer to her but the pervasive silence of the labs allowed her to pick up on the sound of my footsteps.

"That's cheating!" she said. With a hiss she activated her Tactical Cloak and disappeared as well.

I cursed and backed up. With a forlorn sigh I deactivated my cloak.

"Let's finish this, I've got a hot date," I complained.

Olivia gasped and reappeared two meters away. "How dare you!"

I whipped my pistol out and let off a flurry of shots. She rolled out of the way and caught the last two on her shields but the distraction had bought me the time necessary to close the distance between her and I.

I lashed out with my knife but she deflected it with her sword. My other hand brought my pistol low, allowing me to let loose a pair of shots that punched into her gut, chipping at her kinetic barriers. She kneed my pistol away before I could empty the clip and then rammed the hilt of her sword across my face, cutting my cheek open. I headbutted her in response, snapping her head back and causing her to grunt in pain. I grinned when I saw a river of blood run down her nose.

She stumbled away, her sword swinging wildly as she tried to keep me at bay. I ran at her again, my pistol raised. Two more shots slammed into her shields and they disappeared with a crackle. I slashed at her vulnerable face again but she slipped underneath and slammed her knee into my gut. The wind flew out of me and I doubled-over. She then sent a palm flying into my chin, snapping my head back and forcing me to stumble backwards.

She smiled and lifted her sword so the tip was once again hovering over my heart.

"You couldn't save Sarah, could you? I love how you chose the data over her, and then chose me over your friends. You are just full of bad decisions, aren't you? Did you even tell them you were going to go after me? Did you get a chance to say goodbye before you die?"

I swept the tip aside with my knife. "Fuck you!"

With the extra space she had gained between her and I, Olivia resumed her attack with her blade. I just barely dodged a quartet of slashes and parried her last stab. Blood rained freely onto the deck from her nose and from my cheek. I was starting to get light-headed and my limbs were beginning to become non-responsive. I tried to call upon my biotics but my amp only sputtered and hissed.

Suddenly the deck lurched and I was thrown all the way to the wall. Fuck! I had forgotten to reset the timer after the last burn phase.

Just as the burn phase ended I felt a hiss of air, then a sharp, terrible pain as her blade broke through my upper chest plate, punched into the upper meat of my left chest right above my heart and pinned me against the wall.

A fresh river of warm blood washed down my armor. I coughed and sputtered but somehow managed to draw a shaky breath. The blade had just missed the upper lobes of my lung.

I shut my eyes in pain. My pistol and my knife fell to the deck as I brought my hands up and shakily grasped the blade. I coughed up another wave of blood and tried my best to keep upright, to prevent myself from falling and the blade from tearing out of my clavicle.

Olivia leaned in and kissed me. I recoiled and spat blood in her face but she simply laughed. She drew her head back and smiled.

"You failed Sarah, because of you she died. You failed your friends, because of you they'll have to live their entire lives wondering where you went, haunted by the question of whether or not they could have saved you."

She dug her sword deeper into my chest into the wall behind me and moved a step closer. I cried out in pain and felt more blood well up. My fingers tried desperately to pull the blade out but it was too slick with my blood.

"I want to take everything you care for and leave it in ruins. I am so sick and tired of hearing about how perfect you are, what a good Spectre you are, what a good man you are," she spat.

I blinked in pain and confusion. "What are you talking about?" I hissed at her.

The saboteur brushed aside my question and instead bared her teeth in a savage, feral grin.

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" she whispered.

The blood loss was starting to affect my brain. I could feel myself begin to float away. I struggled to come up with a plan – anything, anything to get myself out of this situation —but it was so hard. I was so, so tired.

I tried. I really did, and maybe, just maybe what I'd done had been enough to help the galaxy prepare for these creatures. I wish I could have spoken to Cade and Percival one last time, to tell them to keep on fighting, to tell them that I was sorry, sorry for running away.

 _Don't stop looking for things in this galaxy to cherish just because you're afraid that someone somewhere is going to take it away from you, because eventually you're going to run out of things in this galaxy worth fighting for…_

"You'll be dead soon," Olivia taunted. "You'll die with the knowledge that you failed your friends…"

 _You always think that there's no other way, that you need to do something either incredibly insane or incredibly harmful to yourself to win. Well I'm telling you, you're wrong…_

"… You'll die with the knowledge that you failed this galaxy… with the knowledge that you cannot stop transcendence..." she continued, her voice filled with sadistic lust.

The saboteur looked me in the eye and smiled a sick, twisted smile.

"Before you die, tell me what you cherish most, give me the pleasure of taking it away," she whispered.

… _Doctor Sarah Messner, Alliance R and D and one of the head scientists for Project Prometheus, but feel free to call me Sarah. Welcome aboard, Spectres…_

The feeling began deep inside my chest, tiny at first, like a spark, but before I knew it my whole body was alight with it. It was like a forest-fire after a hot, dry summers day, all-consuming and intense and immediate and destructive. I gave a strangled yell of fury, of anger – of raw, unbridled rage.

To my surprise my hands began to swirl with blue fire. Olivia was caught off-guard by the sight of my biotic manifestation, something that she had thought impossible due to the destruction of my amp. She shrank away, momentarily distracted.

The flames grew around my left hand. I pulled it back and with every last ounce of will punched her straight in the chest. Biotic tendrils erupted around her. Her chestplate cracked in half and she was thrown backwards.

I yelled again and brought both of my hands up to the blade still embedded in my chest. I pulled and I pulled, crying loudly in pain as I did so, until I felt it begin to shift. With one last supreme effort, I tugged it out. It fell to the deck with a clatter and I dropped to my knees, freed.

I grabbed immediately grabbed the blade and sprinted at Olivia as she struggled to her feet. She brought her right arm up to defend herself but my first swing went through the crook of her elbow and cut her arm clean off, just as she had done to my friend. Before she could scream I'd already whirled around and brought the edge of her blade against the back of her thighs, sending her stumbling on one knee to the deck.

I followed up with a cut across her back as I spun back around to face her. Blood went flying onto the deck and she let out a pained cry.

I watched as she struggled to get back up on her feet, blood pumping from her wounds. She grasped her bloody stump and stared at it in shock. I grabbed her by the chin with my free hand and tilted her head up so that her eyes could meet mine. Blue met green, pain met madness.

"There's not a thing I don't cherish," I whispered to her.

Olivia laughed weakly. "I will haunt you for the rest of your days. Every time you close your eyes, I'll be there. Eventually I'll be all you think about. We'll finally be together… I'll belong to you, Cloud, to you and only you. It's what I've always wanted, to belong to you…."

My grip tightened around the handle of her sword. With a grunt I drove the long, pale blade deep into her chest, right up to the hilt where I'd shattered her armor. She slumped into my arms with a sigh, her head resting in the crook of my neck.

"You belong in my memories. Stay there," I hissed.

I pushed her away and she collapsed onto the deck. With what little strength she had left, Olivia looked into my eyes one last time and smiled. A chill swept over the hall as I became the last, living human being inside the labs. I shivered.

I stumbled past her, heading towards the entrance to the activation chamber. Droplets of blood ran down my wounds to spatter onto the deck, marking a red, gory trail behind me.

I paused on the threshold of the activation chamber, one hand against the edge of the door. I tried my best to draw in a few ragged breaths. Eventually the blood loss was too much to bear and I collapsed onto the deck.

I don't know how long I laid there. Not long, the next burn phase hadn't hit yet. Still, some part of me refused to let myself pass out. With a cry I pulled myself back to my feet, using the edge of the door as support.

With a grunt of pain I took my first, shaky step into the activation chamber. One step became two, two became a dozen, and eventually I found myself standing in front of the active Reaper Core. It hummed with power, the four mini-crucibles in each corner of the room still feeding it energy. The hairs on the back of my neck rose in response to the static and I could feel the skin on my face begin to tingle.

With a trembling hand I opened the panel that exposed the Reaper CPU. It sat innocently in its housing. Such a small thing it was, to cause so much trouble.

With shaking fingers I pulled it out. My breath hitched in my chest as I expected something terrible to suddenly occur. Maybe I'd get turned into a Changer, or a mass of Corpsers would suddenly rush at me, intent on defending the source of their creation.

But nothing happened. The Reaper Core continued the hum and sizzle. If I could I'd have taken it too, but it was too big for me to move on my own.

I slid the Reaper CPU into my back pouch and smiled.

With a massive groan the ship began to shake again as the tenth burn phase began. My limbs no longer had the strength to support myself, let alone struggle against the massive g-forces generated by the acceleration. This time I didn't fight it. The pull washed over me and I collapsed onto the deck. It felt nice and cold against the skin of my cheek. My eyelids felt heavy and every second I spent trying to stay awake became unbearable. With a sigh, I slipped blissfully into unconsciousness before the burn phase had even finished.

* * *

 _January 24_ _rd_ _, 2211. 0842 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Prometheus Labs – Activation Chamber_

 _15 hours and 42 minutes after Outbreak, 33 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108_

There was nothing but white light around me. The ache in my limbs had disappeared and it felt as if every cell in my body was no longer screaming for me to stop, for me to sit down and close my eyes. I felt as if I was floating on an aerosol of minute liquid droplets, high up in the atmosphere of a planetary body. What were those called again?

 _Cloud…_

Yeah, that was it. Thanks brain.

 _Wake up…_

I inwardly sighed and gently lifted an eyelid. Both eyelids felt heavy, as if I had just woken up from a deep, dreamless sleep. The sleep of the dead, they called it. Was I dead?

The disembodied voice spoke again, this time more insistently. _Wake up!_

"Just one more minute, mom," I mumbled. I finally opened my eyes and saw a ghostly, pale figure hovering above me. It was Sarah. Her labcoat seemed to reflect the bright, white light. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was smiling gently at me.

 _Do I really look old enough to be your mother?_ She teased.

I smiled and shook my head. "Sorry, thought you were someone else."

Ghost-Sarah laughed and shook her head. _It's time to wake up, Cloud. Your friends, they need you._

I frowned and tried to close my eyes once more. "I know, I know… just one more minute."

 _I know you're tired Cloud, but it's time to wake up._

 _Wake up…_

The light faded and suddenly it all went dark again. Gone was the floating, relaxed feeling that I had been enveloped in just moments before. One by one I could feel my senses turning on. First came the feel of my armor pressing into my flesh, then the smell of electricity in the air, the taste of blood in my mouth and the acrid odor of metal and element zero and sweat.

The ache in my limbs came back, then the tiredness. Finally I felt the cold against my skin, and then a sharp sting on my cheek as a talon smacked into it.

A flanged, familiar voice broke through the haze that lingered around my head. "Cloud? Cloud! Wake up!"

I felt a taloned hand slap my face again, hard. I mumbled and groaned.

Another voice this time, this one deeper and friendlier and also familiar. "He's coming to. I don't think you needed to slap him twice."

The taloned hand came back again like an unwanted friend. I groaned again and wrenched my eyelids open.

"He's awake!"

I groaned and looked down. Medi-gel had been hastily applied to my wounds and a synthstim was embedded in an emergency induction port somewhere on my armor. The pain in my limbs had started to recede. My head cleared somewhat and I shook it to clear the last vestiges of disorientation.

Cade kneeled beside me, one hand poised to slap me again while Percival stood above me, his rifle out, red tech armor activated and covering the entrance to the activation chamber. Both had relieved grins plastered on their faces. I had never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

I sat up and Cade helped me pull myself to my feet. He then pulled me in a deep hug which I returned.

He broke away after a few seconds and grinned at me. "Spirits you're a fucking idiot, thank god we're not stupid."

Percival turned around and pressed a beat-up old Predator pistol and a Talon combat knife into my chest. I grabbed them and examined them. They were mine, the ones I'd dropped during my fight with Olivia.

I sheathed the Talon combat knife back beside its twin and activated my Predator pistol. "Where'd you get the medi-gel and the synthstim from?"

"We found it on Olivia's body," Percival said admonishingly. "Maybe if you'd had the presence of mind to check her over, we wouldn't have found you bleeding half to death."

"Looks like she really did a number on you," Cade pointed at my wounds. "And yet you still give me shit about my flings trying to kill me."

I shook my head and grinned like a maniac at my friends. "First off, it's hard to think straight when some crazy bitch drains you of half your blood. Secondly, you remember that time on Illium? You had to get twenty-two stitches."

Percival brushed aside my half-hearted attempt at humor. "Did you get what you came for?"

I pulled the Reaper CPU chip out of my pouch and showed it to my friends. It was maybe the size of a playing card, and barely two centimeters thick. They both eyed it and nodded. I returned it back to my pouch and zipped it safely shut.

"Hope it was worth it, man. Can you walk?"

I nodded. "Can you keep up?" I shot back.

Percival scoffed and rolled his eyes in good humor. He knew that if I could snark at him then I could probably still outrun him. "Good, because we have about half an hour left before we're in too deep to leave. We need to haul ass to the hangar bay."

Cade unslung his Black Widow and activated it. Meera extended to her full length with a hiss. "We had to ensure that the hangar bay doors were ready to be opened and the corvette was fully operational before we could come and get you. Honestly, don't make me regret it. I was fully ready to leave your stupid ass."

Percival swapped out his current ammunition block in his M-7 Lancer and slid in a block of Inferno rounds. "We goddamn told you not to go after the CPU. I should have known something was up you gave up so easily after we told you 'no' the first time, and when you insisted we headed for hangar bay 1-D. Granted, you were right about the Tiger, but still. You are so goddamn stubborn sometimes."

I dumped the remaining ammunition block on my Predator and replaced it with Disruptor Ammunition. "You know you love me. Now are we going to just stand here or are we going to get off this fucking ship?"

Without another word the three of us filed out of the activation chamber. Not one of us spared Olivia's body a second glance.

"How long until the next burn phase?" I asked.

Percival glanced at his omni-tool. "Maybe four minutes?"

"Let's mosey, then."

"You did not just say that."

The first three Corpsers to appear from the side-halls were hit by an overload charge that caused them to seize up in place. A trio of headshots came next, each one blowing apart their snarling faces in a shower of sparks and gore.

"I'm out," Cade called out.

Percival let loose a trio of bursts with his M-7 Lancer at their fallen bodies, destroying the Crawlers with inferno rounds before they had a chance to get out.

I dashed towards another pair of Corpsers that appeared from another hallway. The first one gave a wide swing of its claws that I deftly slipped under. As I swiveled past it I placed my Predator against the side of its head and blew its brains out. The second one snarled and leapt at me. I rolled beneath it and shot it in the back of the head just as it landed.

More inferno rounds hammered into the Corpsers that I had just killed. I ignored them and focused my attention on another group of Corpsers that spawned a few meters away.

Cade came flashing out of the corner of my eye, his booster jets flaring. He crashed into the lead Corpser and jammed his knife beneath its chin and into its skull. Before his victim could release its Crawlers and the next Corpser in line could grab him, he triggered an Arc grenade that stunned the pack in place. Activating his booster jets once again, Cade quickly rolled out of the way.

A hail of red gunfire cut down the stunned pack. The smell of burning flesh and hot metal immediately assailed my nostrils. An inferno grenade destroyed their bodies and the Crawlers that attempted to escape from their dead hosts.

I smiled, it had been a long time since the three of us had fought together.

"Changer, up ahead!" Percival called out.

Ahead of us were the doors that led to Containment Airlock 1. A sinuous salarian Changer flanked by half a dozen smaller Corpsers blocked the way.

Two of them charged at me. I drew my knife and hamstrung the first one that tried to gut me as I slipped past it. The Corpser snarled and stumbled, making him easy pickings for a headshot from Cade.

The second one didn't even get a chance to howl at his friend's demise. Cade followed up with another headshot that tore apart its face, splattering my armor with blue fluid and gore.

"Can you please watch it?" I complained.

My friend flipped me the finger as his heatsink cooled down. "Can you stop bitching?"

I shot the next two in the head, Percival cleaning up the Crawlers in a mini-firestorm as they emerged. Cade fired the last round in his Black Widow's clip directly in the head of the fifth one and blew apart the last with a trio of shots from his Carnifex.

The Changer didn't flinch at the demise of its compatriots. Instead it began to shuffle towards us, the cables on its arm outstretched.

Cade and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pistols raised and ready to tear into it, but Percival elbowed past the both of us and took aim at the Changer with his M-23 Katana Shotgun.

He slowly began to walk towards it, his badass red tech armor making him look like some kind of medieval warrior. Every step he took he'd fire off another shot that would slam heavily into the Changer, blowing off bits of metal and flesh.

Cade and I were relegated to covering duty. A couple more Corpsers decided to make an appearance but we put them down with indiscriminate force. A couple of grenades here, an overload charge there, then topped off with some heavy caliber Carnifex rounds supplemented by my smaller, lighter Predator rounds. Soon we were surrounded by dead space-zombies.

Percival was about two meters away from the Changer when it finally buckled and collapsed. He slipped in a new heatsink and emptied half of it into the back of the Changers head.

His omni-tool then chimed an alert, and the eleventh burn phase began.

I was the first to pull myself back to my feet. "How much time left?" I asked.

Percival grabbed Cade and helped him up before glancing at his omni-tool. "Twenty-six minutes before we're completely and utterly fucked, and can you set your damn alarm?"

I grumbled and simply set a twenty-six minute countdown on my own omni-tool.

We sprinted out of the Prometheus Labs, through the Containment Airlock, and back into the bowels of the ship, racing for the hangar bay.

Time seemed to dilate as my body went into auto-pilot. I lost count of the number of steps we'd taken, the seconds that had passed, and the creatures that we had killed. Any Corpser that had the misfortune to cross our paths were taken down by one of us. We worked seamlessly together, Cade thinning out targets at range while I killed those closest to us. Percival would clean up the survivors and Crawlers with his Lancer and occasionally the stray Corpser.

Eventually no more Corpsers chose to challenge us and the entrance to the hangar bay loomed ahead. We must have killed several dozen Corpsers since we'd left the labs. Individually the three of us were lethal, deadly – living weapons worth dozens of soldiers each. Together, however? We were a force of nature. Unstoppable, devastating, each of us complimenting and covering one another's strengths and weaknesses and multiplying our individual effectiveness to become a force capable of overcoming any obstacle, any enemy.

We were the best.

* * *

 _January 24_ _rd_ _, 2211. 0859 hours_ – _Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Hangar bay 1-D_

 _15 hours and 59 minutes after Outbreak, 16 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108_

We burst into the hangar bay as soon as the 12th burn phase ended. The hangar bay was largem at least as large as the one that I'd fought the remaining saboteurs in. However, this hangar bay differed from the last one in terms of content.

Dominating the room was the M-88 Tiger-class corvette. It was shaped like a broad, flat arrowhead, maybe twenty-five meters long and nearly ten meters tall from top-to-bottom. From wingtip to wingtip it maybe spanned thirty or so meters, nearly the entire width of the hangar bay. No GARDIAN lasers or any weaponry of any kind to speak of. It was essentially just a massive cargo bay bolted onto a miniature frigate.

Along the side of the room were several massive, fifteen-foot tall, single-occupant metal loaders. They were likely designed to offload cargo and mineral samples from the corvette itself. The arms of the oversized exoskeletons each ended in a pair of metal hands capable of lifting weights exceeding twenty tons.

The bodies of several Corpsers littered the hangar bay. I spotted Captain Murgen, his Jaegers, and the rest of the able-bodied security personnel patrolling the perimeter while Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus finished directing the rest of the survivors to board the cargo bay of the corvette.

As one the Jaegers and the surviving security personnel began to clap. Captain Murgen raised a friendly hand to acknowledge our safe return. "Good to see you, Spectre. Didn't think you were gonna make it!"

"You're one crazy son-of-a-bitch!" Teewin exclaimed.

Beside the big Jaeger, Accer grinned at me like a madman. "You're actually a fucking idiot!" he called out to me.

I smiled lightly as my friends all greeted my return with varying degrees of happiness. Beside me Cade rolled his eyes and Percival shook his head. If only the others had seen the state that my fellow Spectres had found me in.

"Just had to tie up a few loose ends, no biggie," I replied nonchalantly.

Galen and Mardinus both nodded solemnly at us but turian stoicism failed to completely mask their expressions of relief. Rake and Fly smiled and high-fived each other at the sight of us returning unharmed and Soph had the biggest smile on her face. Jay grabbed her in a bear hug and laughed. It was about time we got off this fucking ship.

Camilla sprinted out of the corvette and leapt onto Cade. We all watched as she gave him a deep, lingering kiss.

All the Jaegers hooted with laughter, a couple of the female ones letting out exaggerated, dreamy sighs. A couple of flashes went off as Percival took as many pictures with his omni-tool as he could, grinning as he did so. Even Sergeant Mardinus cracked a grin.

And in typical Cade fashion, he didn't give a shit that he had an audience. He grabbed her by the waist and returned the kiss.

Eventually the two disentangled themselves from one another. Cade sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as Camilla smiled up at the turian Spectre.

"Can you guys maybe save it 'til were off this damn ship?" Percival joked.

Camilla blushed and nodded. With one last smile at Cade she began to turn back to the corvette.

"I'm going to go double-check the systems one more time, make sure nothing goes wrong," she said.

I nodded and looked at Percival. "Go with her, get the engines warmed up and ready to go."

Percival nodded, shooting a sly, taunting grin at Cade that my friend uncharacteristically ignored. The turians eyes were glued on the engineer as she pulled herself into the corvette, a small smile on his face.

" _Spectres, the last of the survivors are loaded. I'm going to the control room to open the hangar bay doors, Captain Murgen should start loading up his men,"_ Barthilus radioed us.

I pressed a finger to my comm. set and acknowledged the Lieutenant-Commander. "Roger that, LC. Boarding now."

I jerked my head at the Jaegers and then jerked my head towards the corvette. Murgen nodded and they began to load into the corvette's cargo bay.

Beside me Cade still seemed lost in a daydream, staring off to where Camilla had boarded the corvette. I grabbed my friend's shoulder and shook him gently to snap him out of his reverie.

"Cade? Hey, Cade!"

The turian shook himself and looked at me. "Hmm?"

"Last ones out, alright?"

He sighed and scratched at a bit of dark-blue face paint that had begun to flake off of his carapace. "Not surprised."

I shrugged apologetically but he dismissed it with a wave and grinned at me. We took up positions in the middle of the hangar bay as the last of the Jaegers followed by the surviving security personnel filed aboard, leaving only Cade, Sergeant Mardinus, Galen, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus and I outside it.

" _The doors are opening now,"_ Barthilus reported in over the comms.

An alarm began to ring as the massive bay doors behind us slowly opened with a crawl. While they did the thrusters on the corvette flared briefly before beginning to power on.

" _Engines are reading in the green, should be warmed up and ready to go any minute now,"_ Percival radioed to us.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. We were finally going to get off this damn ship. "That's great man, just waiting on Barthilus."

" _I'm on my way,"_ the turian bridge officer replied.

I couldn't wait to take a shower, to finally get some hot food that wasn't a protein bar. These last sixteen hours had been nothing but pain, fighting, and fear, and I was eager to get away from it all. Salivating, even.

My alarm chimed again and the last burn phase began.

After it had passed, I pulled myself to my feet and opened up a channel to the Excalibur.

"SSV Excalibur, this is Spectre Cloud. Val, are you there?"

The Flight Lieutenant's response was near instantaneous. " _Roger, was beginning to get a bit worried there."_

The tips of my mouth curved ever so slightly upwards in the beginning of a smile. _"_ You should know better than to doubt me. Is the Excalibur in position?" I asked.

" _Been waiting here for the last hour. You're really close to the star's gravity well now. The navigational route you sent me is saying you should have just hit your last burn phase, right?"_

"Yeah, we just did. Ninety percent of the survivors are already onboard, we've got about six minutes left until were trapped. Just waiting on Barthilus to get his ass here. We're leaving soon, I promise."

" _Alright, I'll be waiting. Don't make a girl a promise if—"_

The sound of crunching metal tore me out of my relaxed reverie and snapped me instantly into a state of alertness. Fear flooded my system and my heart began beating frantically as I tore my pistol out of my holster. The hangar bay was suddenly flooded with the sound of familiar chittering and I could hear sinister, dark voices begin to whisper in an unrecognizable language inside my head.

"Hey Val, I'm going to have to call you back, something came up."

" _Cloud? What's going on? Are you al-"_

I cut her off. _"_ Wait for us, we'll be there! Cloud out!"

" _Clou-"_

Cade, Galen and Mardinus drew up beside me, weapons aimed at the entrance to the hangar bay. I opened up a group-wide channel and immediately barked orders before the situation could escalate.

"Percival! Murgen! Everyone stay aboard the ship, were not staying! Barthilus get your ass over here!" I yelled.

" _Roger that! I'm on my way!"_ the turian officer replied urgently.

The sound of knocking drew my attention away from the entrance. I turned my head to see Percival tapping frantically on the viewport. _"Are you sure you don't need back-up?"_

I shook my head at my friend. _"_ Everyone, stay on the fucking ship!" I screamed into my radio once more for good measure. I could hear Accer, Teewin, Rake and his team, and even Rentea and Jaelen asking if I required assistance over the comm. so I shut it off. My heart sank into my stomach as the chittering and the whispers intensified.

The doors ripped open and the Chimera pulled itself through. Its right forelimb was still destroyed from where I had hit it with the M-920 Cain, but otherwise the rest of it looked terrifyingly functional. It loped towards us with an awkward gait, its six eyes fixated on me. Its tail lashed back and forth, carving gouges in the deck as it rushed straight at us.

I opened fire, aiming at its eyes while Cade did the same. Galen and Mardinus both aimed at its left forelimb in an attempt to wound it and slow it down, but even if they succeeded it still had two more forelimbs that it could use to tear us to pieces.

 _Save us, Tel'elessar…_

The pressure came back but this time I was unaffected. The whispers grew louder and louder but they failed to bring me to my knees or hurt me in the slightest.

I smiled and ran towards it. It swung its left arm at me and tried to grab me but I ducked under it. I emptied the rest of my pistol into its less armored underbelly. The Chimera chittered in pain and shirked away from me as my weapon overheated.

I immediately rolled to my feet and backpedaled, only just managing to dodge its tail as it shot towards me. I released the spent heatsink from my weapon and tried to slide a spare one in.

Three loud cracks split the hangar bay and suddenly three of the Chimera's eyes burst in a shower of sparks. The creature hissed and chittered in pain and its three remaining eyes swiveled onto Cade, whose Black Widow began hissing and venting heat.

My friend tried to backpedal as I had done, but tripped over one of the Corpsers that lay strewn around the bay. With a grunt he landed on his ass.

Before he could use his booster jets and propel himself out of the way, the Chimera was upon him. I looked on in horror as it picked my friend up with one of its forelimbs and brought him close to its face. The Chimera's three remaining eyes glared at him and its disturbingly human mouth bared its teeth in a snarl. My friend pounded on the rotted, half-metal limb to no avail.

Nearby, Mardinus' omni-blade erupted from his left arm. With a yell the turian sergeant leapt at the creature and brought his omni-blade down in a vicious arc, severing the creatures hand and releasing its hold on my friend.

I watched as the Chimera lashed out with its barbed tail, sending it slashing across the veteran sergeants back. Mardinus gave a strangled gasp of pain and a spray of blue blood splattered onto the deck.

The sergeant didn't falter. Instead he grabbed my friend by the collar of his armor and hurled him towards Galen nearly twenty feet away.

"Take him and get aboard the ship!" the sergeant cried.

Galen helped Cade to his feet and looked uncertainly towards his sergeant, his eyes filled with doubt and hesitation. Behind Mardinus the Chimera loomed angrily, silently, its remaining good eyes staring daggers at the turian in front of him, blue blood dripping from his barbed tail.

But Vidanor Mardinus didn't turn, didn't so much as look at the beast behind him. As the creature moved towards the turian sergeant, Mardinus instead looked directly at Cade. In his expression I could see a cascade of different emotions – regret, sorrow, contrition, remorse, and hope.

"Die for the cause," he said quietly.

The Chimera picked up the sergeant and flung him bodily away. I gave a furious shout and began firing at the creature as fast as the trigger mechanism would allow me to.

"Go!" I screamed at Galen, "Take Cade and get on board!"

That snapped the young marine out of it. He nodded and began to pull my friend toward the ship. Cade gave me one last desperate glance as he was pulled onboard, his blue eyes pleading furiously with me to come with him, to escape this hellhole, to run away so that I could live to get drunk and get into fights and go on more missions with my friends.

I grabbed the Reaper CPU from my back pouch and hurled it at him. My friend caught it deftly without looking, his eyes never leaving mine.

I gave him a small, sad smile and a brief wave, then I turned to face the Chimera alone.

 _You will die, Tel'elessar…_

I looked it in the eye and prepared to die. I was ready, I'd been ready ever since I'd swore my vows in front of the Citadel Council and been accepted into the Spectres. I'd been ready ever since a brawny, former N7 Spectre and his lanky turian sidekick had crossed my paths all those years ago and offered me the chance to become something more. It was my time, and I was okay with that. My only regret was that I couldn't do more.

I raised my pistol and walked towards it. My friends now had my recordings and the CPU, I knew that they could handle whatever came next with the saboteurs. All that was left for me to do was to buy my friends the time they needed to escape, to fight. There was no need for any final words – one last defiant curse or a witty, memorable one-liner. No, I just needed to buy time so that they could escape, that was all I had to do.

The sudden appearance of a series of heavy, peculiar footsteps caught my attention, footsteps way too heavy and much too metallic-sounding to be made by anything organic. I cocked my head in confusion and halted in my tracks.

One of the massive exoskeleton loaders shot into my field of vision and slammed into the Chimera, knocking it violently to the ground. The fifteen-foot tall machine wrapped its arms around the Chimera's neck and began choking it.

The creature hissed and chittered and clawed at the massive machine. The loader dug its feet into the ground and strained to keep the beast in place.

" _Spectre! It's time for you to go!"_ shouted a flanged voice on my radio.

I raised a shaky hand and pressed down on my transmit button. "Lieutenant-Commander?" I asked in disbelief.

The cockpit of the loader depolarized, revealing a turian in the garb of a Turian Hierarchy Naval officer manning the exoskeleton. I watched as he struggled at the controls, trying desperately to hold onto the writhing Chimera.

The turians face was a stoic mask of duty and determination. " _I won't be able to hold it for long, get on the ship, Cloud. They're going to need you,"_ Barthilus said firmly.

The Chimera railed against its captor. It began to attack the loader with her tail, the massive, barbed appendage cutting deep gouges in the machine's mechanical arms and the cockpit. I watched as tiny cracks began to spread on the dense, plastic surface.

Another series of heavy, metal footsteps erupted from the other side of the room. A second loader came out of nowhere and grabbed the Chimera's tail, pinning it to the ground.

" _It's been an honor serving with you sir,"_ said another flanged voice.

It was suddenly very hard to breath. My throat seized up, my legs felt like they were going to buckle at any moment and I could begin to feel a bit of moisture just underneath my eyelids. I blinked furiously to get rid of it and struggled to get my vocal cords to work.

"The honor has been all mine, Sergeant."

Barthilus' loader soon began to creak and groan. The Chimera's mechanical jailors wouldn't last forever. The creature had now begun wailing, its thrashings growing more and more desperate. Mardinus' cockpit depolarized as well, allowing me to see the turian sergeant in his final moments.

" _Tell Cade I'm sorry. Tell him I'll be sure to tell my little girl all about him when I see her,"_ Mardinus said. The turians voice was strong and steady, seemingly unafraid of death.

I swallowed and nodded. "Will do."

First Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus smiled at me. " _Good, now get going Cloud. Like the good Lieutenant-Commander says, they're going to need you. Die for the cause."_

" _Die for the cause, Cloud,"_ echoed Lieutenant-Commander Syriah Barthilus.

"Die for the cause," I whispered.

Without another look I pivoted on the balls of my feet and began to sprint towards the Corvette's entrance. The countdown on my omni-tool indicated that we had maybe 80 seconds left before the last burn phase.

I leapt up the stairs in two massive bounds and sprinted into the cockpit. Camilla was monitoring the engine readouts while Percival had the command seat. Cade had the co-pilot seat, leaving me the pilot's chair. All four of them were staring transfixed at the sacrifice of the two turians.

I slid into it and belted up. The engines were already hot and running, making it a simple matter of simply flying the corvette out of the hangar. I grabbed the controls and ever so gently lifted the Corvette a meter off the deck. I retracted the bridge and sealed the ship.

Past the viewport I could see the loaders still holding onto the Chimera. Sparks had begun to emit from both exoskeletons and Mardinus' loader's left leg was basically nothing but scrap, but still they held on. The Chimera continued to thrash and try and free itself before the Hippocrates' inevitable collision with Theodore 108.

I gently used the controls to turn the ship 180-degrees around so that the nose was facing the exit. M-88 Tiger-class Corvettes had extremely sensitive controls, much more similar to a fighter than a dreadnought, a cruiser, a carrier, or even heavy or light stealth frigates. Granted, Val managed to pilot the SSV Excalibur – which was a heavy frigate – like a fighter, but otherwise it was a feat that took either experience or raw talent.

I hit the thrusters and we shot out of the hangar bay. I was careful to keep the controls as steady as possible during the exit.

We shot out into the blackness of space like a burning star. To our left blazed Theodore 108. While only a red dwarf, the surface temperatures would be more than sufficient to eradicate and destroy every last living and non-living thing aboard the Hippocrates.

Percival keyed open the ships comms and began to hail the Excalibur. "Flight Lieutenant, we're clear and approaching the rendezvous point. Prep for triage and stand by to receive survivors."

" _Roger that Spectre, I'll have a medical team standing by,"_ replied Val. " _Did … did everyone make it?"_

Percival looked at me and smiled. He keyed open the comm. to give Val the good news. "Yeah, everyone."

We all smiled but none of us felt the need to respond. Now that we were finally off the ship, all the fatigue, the horror, the loss that we had experienced and that the adrenaline had kept at bay for the last sixteen hours seemed to hit us all at once. We flew on in silence.

Cade calmly monitored system traffic beside me, watching for relay activity, stray asteroids and solar flares. His mandibles were still and his blue eyes looked weary beyond his years. I could sense that he was struggling with finding the right words to say to me. In those last few moments, both of us had thought that I was truly going to die.

I coughed and broke first.

"Mardinus says he was sorry, says he'll be telling his little girl all about you when he finally sees her," I said quietly.

Cade looked up at me and I bit my lip as I steeled myself for the inevitable verbal beatdown I knew that he was surely going to apply. I knew how it'd go down. First he'd tell me that I could have stealthed and ran, then I'd tell him that nothing would then have stopped the Chimera from damaging the corvette. He'd follow up with the fact that Barthilus and Mardinus had already decided to give their lives and then I'd counter with the fact that at that moment I had not known about the sacrifice the two turians had decided to make.

I tensed up, ready to get into it, but recoiled slightly in surprise when all Cade did was fish the Reaper CPU out of his pocket and hold it out to me.

I slowly took it and placed it back in my pouch.

"He was a brave marine," Cade said. "I'm glad he'll finally get to see his family again."

I closed my eyes in relief at the fact that I wouldn't have to be drawn into an argument.

"Cloud?"

My eyes flashed open. Maybe I spoke too soon.

Cade look me in the eye. "We're Spectres," he acknowledged.

The way he said it told me all that I needed to know. As much as it hurt to think about, we were friends second and Spectres first. Our duty always had to be to the galaxy first and not to each other. When you had to decide between your brother or billions of faceless individuals, ninety-nine point nine percent would likely pick their brother. That point-one percent? We Spectres had to be a part of that. Had to be.

We were expected to give our lives to the greater good should the time and the need arise. Cade knew this, Percival knew this, and I knew this.

Back there, aboard that ship, inside that hangar bay, I had thought that it was my turn. The Council needed whatever data we had retrieved from aboard the ship and we were the only ones who knew about the hidden threat on a hundred planets. At least Cade and Percival had to make it. I was ready and willing to die to protect them and the knowledge they had, to ensure that it survived the ship, and Cade knew.

He would have done the same in my place. That's why he didn't try to stop me. It was our duty.

"We're Spectres," I agreed. Nothing more needed to be said on the matter.

"So what now?" Camilla asked. The young technician looked like hell warmed over but neither the bags beneath her bloodshot eyes nor the pale, clammy tinge to her normally brown skin would hide the fact that she was anything but beautiful. I smiled as I recalled Cade and I's first encounter with the feisty engineer. That plasma shotgun had nearly burnt my friend to a crisp.

"We're going to the Council. They need to know what happened aboard the Hippocrates and about the saboteurs," Percival replied. He had deliberately left out the part about the Reaper cores and the threat that they posed.

"We give them everything we've learned and they'll work with the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance to come up with a course of action. Chances are we'll be the ones sent to hunt them down," he continued.

Camilla looked at the big Spectre and smiled. "Got room for one more?" she asked cheekily.

Percival laughed and returned the gesture. "Perhaps, Spectres get a lot of leeway when it comes to coopting both military and civilian help."

Cade scratched the scalloped plates on the back of his neck and yawned. "You think they'll give us some downtime? After all we did just destroy a whole ship filled with genocidal, virulent space-zombies, stop a crazed faction of saboteurs from escaping with vital intel, and discover a secret plot to convert everyone in the galaxy into more space-zombies. I think we're finished."

Camilla's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "What? Convert who into what?"

I sighed and rubbed my aching jaw. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to close my eyes but I had to stay awake for just a little bit longer. I was so tired that my vision had started to blur and I could slowly feel myself phasing in and out of consciousness.

I unclipped my helmet from the back of my armor and gently placed it on the console in front of me. The saboteurs were still out there, the Reaper Cores and the DNA inside them were still dangerous, and the galaxy still wasn't safe. I could rest when I was dead.

"No," I said, "I think we're just getting started."


	19. Chapter 19 - Intermission

**Chapter 19 – Intermission**

* * *

 _ **18 Chapters and 150k words of a masseffect/deadspace/halo bastard lovechild, filled with badly-depicted tropes, unnecessary video game references, totally unoriginal main characters, cringy moments, some sphincter-tightening dialogue and stream of consciousness.**_

 _ **All of it serving as a long-winded set-up for some first-timer's head-scratching mass effect story. Honestly I can't wait to put my chars in actual places in the ME uni. 18 chapters was a bit too long to spend on one ship imo, idk how dead space did it so well.**_

 _ **For the few of you who somehow actually find that this story works for them, well I ain't judging. Ty for suffering in silence ur sacrifice is appreshiated.**_

 _ **Derek, this is your tape.**_

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system — Aboard the TMV Harsa's Embrace_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(First Officer Borag Calolek)_

The fifteenth peal of his pre-set alarm finally pulled the snoring batarian out of his comatose, alcohol-induced slumber. With a heavy groan, Borag Calolek found himself pulled back into the land of the living.

Borag slapped a heavy hand onto his omni-tool and quickly shut off the irritating alarm, grumbling as he did so. He scratched at the fine hairs that covered the reddish-brown skin on my face before stretching my arms out and indulging in a spine-popping yawn.

 _Oh god,_ he thought, _what a night._

The devils take Gorek's sight. Whatever he'd managed to cook up in his homemade distillery had damn nearly killed him last night. It had hit him like a krogan berserker. Damn Gorek and damn this infernal alarm for waking him.

Borag blinked the last vestiges of sleep from his four eyes and wearily pulled himself out of his tiny cot and into his room's personal refresher. He groped blindly at the activation knob for a few moments before his thick fingers finally found them.

A steaming jet of hot water hit him hard in his four-eyed face and the batarian first officer sighed happily. Batarians had thick skin, and thus preferred refreshers with water jets that had a little more power behind him.

The first officer stood there for a full minute without moving so much as a single muscle, simply enjoying the luxurious feel of the shower jet. Once he'd indulged himself enough, he began lathering himself up with soap, washing away the last vestiges of vomit he'd accidentally gotten on himself from the night before.

When Borag finally stepped out of the shower, he was almost in a good mood. He'd definitely be in one once they'd landed on Anhur and could finally put an end to their three-month long delivery trip throughout Terminus space.

 _Only what, ten more hours in this tin can?_ Borag thought. Ten hours and then he'd finally have his feet back on real ground, seated at a reputable, licensed establishment that didn't serve toxic swill. Devils, maybe there would be batarian women, or even human women. Borag was nothing if not open-minded.

He pulled on his uniform, making sure that his first officer's bars were highly visible and polished to a gleaming sheen upon his chest. The TMV (Terminus Merchants Vessel) Harsa's Embrace might only have a crew of one hundred and seventy, but that meant that there were at least one hundred and sixty-eight crewmembers who he had seniority over—who he could bully, cajole, and otherwise push around by merit of his rank.

For fun of course, Borag wasn't a sadistic thug. He got along well with his fellow crew members and they'd all gotten used to Borag's mannerisms and unique brand of camaraderie.

The first officer stepped out of his room and made his way down the corridors of the Harsa's Embrace. Clocking in at nearly three hundred meters long, fifty meters tall, and nearly sixty meters wide, the Harsa's Embrace was a cargo vessel of roughly medium-sized tonnage, with more than half of the space ship being dedicated to its cargo hold.

The Embrace had just returned to Anhur from a trip that had taken them halfway across the Terminus Systems, including stops at Omega and Illium. The crew was a mixed bag – mostly batarians and humans, but also included salarians, turians, and even a few asari. They were all tired, hard workers and they were looking forward to finally getting some well-deserved shore leave.

Borag grinned and clapped a friendly hand on the shoulders of a few of the night-shift techs who were just now coming off duty. They smiled at him and lightly roasted him for his inability to hold Gorek's demon brew the night before.

The doors to the bridge slid open and the batarian First Officer stepped in. Captain Krato Vankaloh and Navigations Officer Gorek Dar'than were already seated at their respective posts. Flight Lieutenant Timothy Smith manned the helm, and from the way his bloodshot eyes struggled to stay open, the small human had been hit by Gorek's brew even harder than Borag had.

"How was your morning?" Gorek smiled devilishly. In his hands he held a cup of steaming coffee that he now offered to Borag as a peace token. His four eyes blinked mischievously and for a second Borag was hit with a wave of vertigo as he was hit by the memories of the night before.

Borag took the proferred cup and took a tentative sip. He sighed in relief at the hot liquid and barred his needle-like teeth in a friendly smile his fellow batarian.

"You'll need to try harder to make first officer," he grinned.

Gorek let out a loud bark of laughter, "That wasn't an assassination attempt! You just can't hold your damned alcohol, you four-eyed bastard."

Borag took another sip and then took his seat at the security cameras.

"Then explain to me why I almost died?"

"Can't, not without jeopardizing our friendship or your ego," Gorek chuckled.

Flight Lieutenant Timothy Smith rubbed his bleary eyes with a tiny hand and moaned. "Let's not forget the real victim here, boys."

Gorek and Borag both laughed and hooted at the human officer's misfortune. He was maybe a hundred pounds lighter than either of the hefty batarians and had drunk as much if not more than Borag himself. The three bridge officers poked and jabbed at each other, all in good fun, then proceeded to make plans for what they'd do once they finally landed on Anhur.

One individual did not join in on the festivities, however. Captain Vankaloh's four eyes scanned his console intently, trying to reconcile with the sense of unease growing in his chest.

Krato Vankaloh had spent the last twenty-five years piloting and later captaining cargo vessels. Unlike the hardline batarian slavers who'd been the main antagonists of the Slaver Fringe Wars, Krato had never stooped so low as to participate in the barbaric act of enslaving refugees. The Reaper War had changed him, had shown him that all beings were equal and that no one should live under the heel of another. There were other ways to restore the Batarian Empire and his people back to their former glory.

Delivering goods and tools from colony to colony in the Terminus Systems did not require robbing other species of their freedoms and had satisfied his desire to do good for the last twenty-five years. But one didn't rise to the rank of Captain without developing a sixth sense for danger – especially when you were in charge of a vessel with little-to-no defensive capabilities.

"Borag, have you heard from our escorts? They're almost twelve minutes late checking in," Captain Vankaloh inquired.

Borag quickly set his mug down and began to flip through the comm. channels and the ship's message-box. "Negative Captain, no messages. Maybe they aren't awake yet."

The sense of unease swelled to uncomfortable proportions within the batarian captain's chest. Their escort ships had checked in at the same time every morning for the last three months, doing so once every four hours. Something was wrong.

Captain Vankaloh immediately jumped into action. "Gorek, radio engineering and tell them to warm up the drive core. Helmsman, prepare for evasive maneu—"

A light shudder caused the Bridge of the Harsa's Embrace to shift ever so slightly. Before Krato Vankaloh was a cargo pilot, he'd served in the Batarian Navy. He knew the kind of shudder a ship would undergo after being hit by a mass accelerator slug. He also knew the kind of shudder a ship would undergo when an enemy ship crashed into its sides.

This was a different kind of shudder. This was the kind of shudder that seized a ship when they were being boarded. And aboard a cargo vessel such as the Harsa's Embrace, there was only one place on the ship where you could board in great enough numbers to seize a foothold.

"Borag! Grab a security team and get to the cargo hold now!" Krato yelled.

First Officer Borag Calolek scrambled to his feet and quickly hailed the Embrace's on-duty security team. An alarm began to sound throughout the ship, calling all of the crew to battle readiness. That being done, Borag immediately palmed the bridge doors open and dashed out.

And Captain Krato Vankaloh was right behind him, M-8 Avenger in hand. Flight Lieutenant Smith could get the Embrace to Anhur just find on his own and Gorek could be his co-pilot in the event of an emergency. Krato was a Captain, and a captain had to lead.

Although he'd served on a cargo vessel for the last twenty-five years, he'd never forget his time in the Batarian Navy. Deep in his heart he would always be a fighter. He remembered how loudly he had cheered when Captain Ka'hairal Balak had handed command of the remnants of the Batarian Navy to Commander Shepard instead of letting the decimated batarian fleets rot away in some far corner of the galaxy.

Above all, he wasn't a bad man. He wouldn't stand by as his crew put themselves in harm's way to defend his ship, safe and snug on the bridge. No, he'd be right there with them.

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system — aboard Hammerhead Dropship B-22_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Field Commander Morder Zakiah – Project Transcendence)_

Zakiah's scarred, grey hands tightened in pain on one of the handholds embedded within the wall of the Hammerhead dropship.

The salarian snarled and slapped his other hand on a trigger affixed to his armor. Immediately the pain began to recede as a flood of painkillers washed through his system. The scars stopped their burning and his head began to clear. The pain was a useful anchor and battle stimulant, but only in the heat of combat.

Outside of it, the pain was crippling. It burned and bubbled and kept him awake at night. For the millionth time, Zakiah cursed Locke and cursed the Spectre who'd inflicted such wounds.

Behind him sat a dozen, silent believers in sleek, matte-black armor, silenced M-7 Lancers across their laps, their faceplates tinted. The majority of them were human, but two of them were salarian and one of them was even an asari.

Zakiah knew that not all of them were true believers. Not all of them were fanatics. That would be pure delusion, an assumption that could lead to costly mistakes in battle.

No, few believed in the promise of eternal life. Most wanted to simply see their loved ones again – old lovers, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters – those that they were torn away from before their time. Some wanted money, some wanted wealth, some wanted simply to kill.

It did not matter, not as long as transcendence was achieved.

His dropship and two others were each currently attached to one of the three sides of the cargo bay of the vessel known as the Harsa's Embrace, small lasers beginning to cut a hole in the side of the bay large enough for the boarders to emerge through.

A fourth contained the precious gift and would remain on standby until they had secured the hold. Each was filled to the brim with soldiers of every species. All would fight, some would die, and Morder Zakiah would be one step closer to achieving everlasting life.

The lasers on all three dropships ceased their burning as each simultaneously finished cutting through to the cargo hold of the Harsa's Embrace. Zakiah could picture the defenders quivering in place, their palms sweaty, the air heady with the scent of their fear.

He began to salivate, his hands began to twitch incessantly. He activated his Scorpion pistol and thumbed the painkiller trigger on his armor again. Damn Locke and damn that quiet, angry Spectre for hurting him. He'd have his revenge one day, after he'd killed everyone aboard this ship of course.

A jet of air hurled the cut-out sides of the cargo bay onto the bay deck and immediately a hail of gunfire erupted from among the defenders.

The invaders weren't novices. Had the defenders been more well-trained then maybe they'd have waited until the invaders actually begun to exit their boarding craft before opening fire, and even then fire in waves so that all of their heatsinks didn't overheat at once.

But they weren't. They were mostly civilian crew members, and what security personnel there was aboard the ship weren't particularly experienced either. After about seven seconds, their weapons all overheated and not a single round even so much as scratched the shielding of any of the invaders.

Zakiah howled in laughter and immediately dove out of his dropship. His Scorpion pistol barked four times and a volley of miniature grenades slammed into the arms, legs, and torsos of the closest fireteam of security personnel.

They detonated at once, the low-grade kinetic shields on their armor doing little to stop the high-powered rounds. The fireteam was immediately blown to ribbons. Expressions of horror immediately clawed their way onto the faces of the remaining defenders and the stench of fear in the air was so heavy that Zakiah could have walked on it.

The salarian saboteur triggered his Tactical Cloak and faded away. His fellow boarders then exited from their respective crafts in force and half of them began to lay down suppressive fire while the other half moved into cover.

The defenders were unprepared for the precision and skill with which the boarders executed their maneuvers. The suppressive fire killed another dozen defenders that had been caught out of cover and wounded scores more. They had been expecting untrained, undisciplined pirates, not soldiers with obvious military training.

Zakiah weaved among the harried defenders, leaving behind a grenade here and there. Defenders began to scream and shout as their friends would disappear in gory messes not meters away from where they themselves would be crouched, their murderer nowhere to be seen. They had no training fighting against cloaked opponents and it showed.

The salarian spotted two batarians valiantly trying to direct and consolidate the remaining defenders. One of them had a Captain's bars affixed to his uniform, while the other had insignia that marked him as the First Officer. Both were surrounded by half a dozen of the most skilled security personnel, trying to rally their fellow defenders against the boarders.

A wave of pain hit Zakiah as his scars began to burn once more and he snarled, cursing Locke and cursing the Spectre once more. He unclipped a sticky grenade from his belt, primed it, and hurled it at the tight knot of brave defenders.

The small blue orb landed on the chest of the batarian wearing the uniform of the First Officer. With a grunt he shoved his captain out of the way and immediately sprinted towards the nearest boarder. The grenade went off, killing him and his target.

The Captain got up and looked at the remains of his friends with an expression of shock. With a guttural roar of fury he grabbed his weapon and charged at the encroaching boarders. He somehow managed to reach the first one and swing his Avenger assault rifle like a club at the distracted boarder's head. The black-clad soldier was a slim, human female and the heavy-set batarian had no trouble snapping her neck with the brutal hit.

The batarian captain didn't stop, instead he hurled a grenade he grabbed from the fallen boarder's belt at another cluster of her fellow boarders. It went off and drained their kinetic shields, allowing the captain to cut them down in a hail of gunfire.

The captain's valiant maneuver emboldened the remaining defenders. The return-fire from the ship's crew intensified and the boarder's suddenly found themselves forced behind cover. Angry shouts of defiance erupted from the voices of the remaining crew of the Harsa's Embrace. They would not go quietly. The names of several batarian and even human gods were loudly invoked as the crew raged against the boarders.

The captain's valiant maneuver was brave, but it also made him a target. Despite the best efforts of the crew and their captain, the boarders all possessed military training and state-of-the-art weaponry and armor. They concentrated their fire on the batarian captain and eventually he was brought down, red blood pouring out from over a dozen wounds.

Zakiah cackled at the sight of the dying batarian and hurled another pair of grenades at the ship's surviving security personnel as they stood stunned at seeing their captain being brought down. The grenades detonated with a violent burst of energy and left nothing more than charred carcasses and broken weapons.

The remaining defenders were merely technicians, engineers, and cargo hands. They began to panic and lose cohesion, making them easy prey for the trained boarders. One by one they fell, until eventually none were left.

The salarian calmly made his way over to the batarian captain. Zakiah was surprised to see that he was still alive despite his multitude of wounds. However, each breath was a struggle for the dying batarian, and the saboteur knew that he did not have long for this world.

Zakiah knelt down and pulled out a knife from behind his back. He began to flip it again and again in his hands as he grinned viciously at the fallen captain.

"You put up quite the fight! I commend you for that, batarian!" The salarian laughed.

The captain struggled to speak, but the blood that was currently filling his chest cavity presented a barrier that was inhibiting him from doing so, despite the best of his abilities.

Zakiah patted the captain gently on the shoulder. "Take heart, die with the knowledge that there was nothing you could have done to save your crew. Even if you'd surrendered, we would have still slaughtered you all," he told him.

"Nothing personal," the salarian assured him. "Just simply collateral damage in the pursuit of a glorious future!"

Captain Krato Vankaloh finally gathered the strength to speak. Blood bubbled from the corners of his mouths and all four of his eyes fixed upon the crazed salarian. His head tilted ever so subtly to the right— a subtle act of batarian defiance that would go unnoticed by the demented saboteur.

"You slaughtered… my crew… you butcher!" He coughed. "Devil's take… your… sight…"

Morder Zakiah grinned and leaned in close, bringing his scarred, wrinkled face within inches of the dying batarian's own. The salarian's cold, grey eyes starred into the captains, reveling in the rapidly-dimming light that he saw within them. For a minute his scars ceased to burn and he could only feel a sense of ecstasy as he watched the batarian begin to give up his ghost.

"Like I said, collateral damage."

Krato coughed once more. His bullet wounds had stopped hurting a while ago, leaving behind only numbness and a chill that seeped into the bone. He knew his crew would die, he only wished that he'd been stronger for them. He hoped that the gods would take mercy on their unfortunate souls and on the ones that the salarian would undoubtedly target next.

"I've lived… a long life… salarian… do you… know what is… the one thing I've learned…?" Krato wheezed.

Zakiah cocked his head and smiled brightly at the batarian. "No, do tell."

Krato could feel his eyelids becoming more and more heavy. He was tired, so, so tired. Every second he fought to stay awake felt like an eternity of struggle, but he couldn't die, not just yet. He'd join his crew – would join Borag and Gunthar and Alan very, very soon, but not just yet.

"Scum like… you… will always… be stopped."

With those words, Krato summoned the last of his strength and spat on the salarian's face, coating it in a spray of fine, red droplets that began to slide down his face.

Zakiah threw his head back once more and howled with laughter. He caught the knife he had been flipping around in his hand and drove it deep into the batarian captain's chest.

"Perhaps…," the salarian admitted. With another small shove he drove it all the way up to the hilt. Batarians were strong, hardy folk. They had been known to survive wounds that would kill most humans, asari, and salarians, and even turians.

Krato's eyes went wide, and he could not keep the darkness at bay any longer. With a sigh he succumbed to his wounds, breathed one final breath, and died.

"… but not today," Zakiah whispered.

The salarian saboteur stood up and wiped his knife on his chest. He then slid it back into its sheath and radioed the fourth and final dropship to attach itself to the cargo hold.

Black-armored saboteurs guarded the entryways as the dropship began to use its lasers to cut its way into the core. Soon the way was open, and another quartet of saboteurs poured onto the ship. They brought with them a series of portable mass effect generator tracts designed to move large objects. The newcomers quickly assembled them at the base of the entrance as the remaining saboteurs inside struggled to move a large, metal object out of the dropship and into the cargo bay.

Morder Zakiah smiled and slapped a scarred hand against the painkiller trigger affixed to his armor, gazing reverently at the Reaper Core that his fellow saboteurs procured from the dropship, the red light of the Core reflected in his black, murky eyes.

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Anhur – Planetary Defense Cannon Main Generator_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Operations Chief Simon Merryweather)_

Every ragged breath threatened to tear Simon's lungs in two as he struggled to maintain his speed.

Sweat dripped from his pale forehead into his eyes, threatening to rob the Operations Chief of his sight and make his dead man's sprint ever the more difficult. Simon Merryweather was not a fit man. His job was to sit at a console for eight hours a day, monitoring the generator's energy outputs and their uplink to Anhur's network of planetary defense cannons.

It was what he'd done every day, seven days a week, for the last eight years. Every day he'd wake up in his room on-base and he'd eat, change, then report in for his eight-hour shift. He'd make smalltalk with his fellow techies as he monitored the uplink and the output, take an extra half-hour for lunch, then continue to monitor the uplink and the output until the next shift came in and tapped him out. Boring, repetitive, predictable.

But not today. Today the intruder alarms had begun to ring during the small hours of the night, when everyone was fighting off the lethargy that they'd accrued during the day and struggling to stay awake. The comm. channels began to light up with reports of murderous, shadowy figures killing everything and everyone, and Simon Merryweather didn't intend to end up on that list.

The operations room was both the most secure place in the facility and the only place where one could send out an SOS, meaning Simon could both do his duty and save his own skin without sacrificing one for the other. With that knowledge in mind, he had hastily slipped into his uniform and had begun a dead run towards the operations room.

As he ran down the hall he saw his fellow workers in branching corridors get gunned down by tall, menacing figures who cast sharp, jagged shadows in the dim gloom of the emergency lighting.

A few dozen meters behind him ran a cadre of his fellow shift workers. He watched as a security door slammed shut between him and his fellow survivors, their screams of terror echoing in the rapidly-empting corridors of the generator facility as they were set upon by demonic figures in black armor, spiked helmets and sharp talons. The smell of gunfire and blood and other bodily fluids began to invade the facility as swiftly and suddenly as the shadowy figures had.

Simon's lungs burned as he maintained his pace. Down another hall a pair of ghostly shapes emerged from out of nowhere. They were clad in matte-black armor designed distinctively for turians. Their helmets had a tapered, armored compartment at the back for where a turian's spiked fringe was supposed to go, giving each figure the look of a horned demon.

But Simon didn't spare the apparitions a second glance as he ran into the operations room, slapping the door button as he dashed through. The thick metal doors sealed shut with a hiss behind him and he ran for the comm. set. No one else had made their way into the operations room – he was the only one.

He could hear a slight hissing crackle behind him as the ghosts began to cut through the door. Trembling violently with fear, he grabbed the comm. set and struggled to input the correct frequencies. His fingers were simply shaking too much.

Eventually he connected. He breathed a ragged sigh of relief and immediately began to send out an SOS.

"This is Operations Chief Simon Merryweather, currently stationed at the Anhur Planetary Defense Cannon Generators! We're under attack by what appears to be a group of—"

A well-aimed pistol shot blew apart the comm. set in his hands, tearing it apart in a violent shower of sparks and metal fragments. Simon yelped at the sudden destruction of his only way of calling for help. He began to feel a wetness pool in the seat of his pants as his trembling intensified tenfold.

He turned to look at the tall, black-and-gold armored figure slowly walk towards him, a smoking M-11 Suppressor pistol in one taloned hand. Behind him were another dozen figures also clad in matte-black armor of similar shape and form. Now that they were mere meters away, Simon could tell that they were indeed all definitely turian.

Simon fell out of his chair and sank to his knees as the leader walked up to him. The tall turian pressed a trigger on his helmet. The entire helmet bloomed like a flower from back to front, allowing him to pull it off of his face and fringe and look the frightened Operations Chief eye-to-eye, rather than allowing the poor man to beg and plead at an imposing, impassive black visor.

He had pale, soft, white scales and plates and light blue clan markings that Simon could not identify. The Operations Chief gazed into the turian's blood-red eyes and immediately began to sob. He didn't see any anger, any hate – only an apologetic look of sorrow, one that Simon knew could only mean one thing.

"P-p-please… Don't kill me…" Simon begged.

One of the other turians tilted his head towards his leader. The red-eyed turian looked at him and cocked his head as if he was listening. Simon couldn't hear what the two were talking about – his eyes were glued on the turian's pistol – for the first turian still had his helmet on, and was likely conversing with his leader on their own private comm. channel.

The white-plated turian twitched his mandibles. He pressed the barrel of his M-11 Suppressor against Simon's forehead. Simon closed his eyes and began to pray.

"I'm sorry," the turian whispered. Simon then heard what sounded like a muted clap and then he couldn't hear anything at all.

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Anhur – New Thebes, city center._

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Constable Ja'laral Rakan)_

"Jal, watch out!" screamed his partner.

Ja'laral, or his friends called him, Jal, dove out of the way of the creature's vicious looking claws and rolled behind the cover of a potted plant.

The creature – what had once been a human – snarled and opened its mouth to let loose a soul-chilling howl that joined the cacophony of howls that currently echoed throughout the city, courtesy of its brethren.

Jal shuddered as the flesh around its mouth ripped even further apart as the creature howled and began to ooze even more blood and blue fluid. He leveled his Predator Pistol, police standard-issue, and struggled to calm his beating heart long enough to draw a bead on the creature.

But he couldn't. His four eyes grew wide in fear as his first shot sizzled over the creature's shoulder and his second hit the creature in the arm, sending it stumbling back but doing no real damage. The creature snarled and snapped its jaws in fury and coiled to pounce at the terrified batarian officer.

Before it could leap, a barrage of shots slammed into the back of the creature's head, blowing it apart in a shower of grey matter and sparks. The creature dropped like a puppet cut from its strings and crumpled onto the ground.

He blinked in surprise and fell onto his ass. A tall, golden-haired woman also dressed in a constable's uniform held out a gloved hand towards him. "You okay, Jal?" asked Emily.

Jal grabbed his partner's proffered hand and pulled himself up. He dusted himself off and eyed the carcass of the creature with both disdain and fear.

"Thanks, that was close," he said breathily. The batarian placed both hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves.

Emily turned around and cast another glance at the corpse of the creature. It began to twist and writhe as its stomach began to bulge unnaturally in certain places. She watched with horror as the rotted flesh ruptured and a pack of mechanical, spider-like creatures began to pull themselves out and scurry towards them.

"Shit! We've got to go!" she yelled. Emily immediately began to sprint away, towards their police cruiser, Jal close behind.

Constable Ja'laral Rakan didn't question his partner's orders. He didn't look back, didn't try to shoot the creatures – instead, he sprinted towards to cruiser, doing his best to ignore a fresh new wave of howling that erupted somewhere behind him.

The two constables of the New Thebes Police Force sprinted down a narrow street, hurdled a trash cans, and generally did their best to avoid losing their footing and falling prey to their monstrous pursuers.

Jal, being taller and stronger than his partner, reached the cruiser ahead of his partner by a matter of seconds. He pulled himself into the driver's seat and immediately turned on the ignition as Emily pulled herself in the passenger's seat with a gasp of relief.

The doors closed shut just as their pursuers reached the cruiser. Both officers shuddered as the monsters outside began to pound and scrape at the cruisers doors, snarling and hissing in fury and hunger. They didn't know how long the doors would hold, but Jal didn't intend to stay long enough to find out.

Jal stepped on the pedal and the cruiser's mass effect generator immediately began to hum and propel the cruiser forward and up into the air. The snarls and hisses of the creatures left outside began to fade as Jal forced the cruiser into the air and into the panicked mass of skycars that were currently flying haphazardly around the city, disobeying all traffic regulations and in more than one instance colliding with one another to create fiery explosions and more casualties.

But Jal wasn't about to stop and render aid, nor try and enforce any measure of order on the chaos caused by the appearance of these creatures. Instead he artfully weaved the cruiser in and around the dozens of skycars each headed in different directions in the airspace around him, his eyes darting between the radar and the viewport, trying his best to dodge drivers who were too scared and frightened to effectively watch where they were going.

Beside him his partner was currently flipping through various radio frequencies, trying to connect with anything and anyone who might be listening. The blonde woman had tied her hair up in a bun to prevent stray locks from falling into her eyes and was currently biting her lip in apprehension as each channel she cycled onto kept coming up dark.

"This is constable Emily Wright, of the New Thebes Police Force, 71st Precinct! Does anyone copy?" she broadcasted. "Captain Gregory? Are you there?"

Emily gave a cry in frustration and slammed the receiver onto the dashboard of the cruiser.

"No luck?" Jal asked.

The human female officer shook her head and pulled out her standard-issue Predator pistol to check the remaining ammunition block. "No, comms are completely down, they must have targeted our satellites."

"Shit," cursed the batarian officer. Without communications there was no way to coordinate an effective defense and containment against these creatures, let alone evacuation. Whatever these things were, they'd eventually find their way out of New Thebes and make their way to the rest of the cities.

Jal gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled grip. "What do we do, Ems?"

Emily pressed the heels of her palms to both eyes and sighed. She held them there for a few seconds to both calm herself and to banish away those few tears that threatened to break down her whittling barriers.

"We stick to the plan, we go pick up Margaret and the girls, we load up this cruiser with as much food as we can and then we hightail it as far away from this city as possible. This situation is FUBAR, comms are down and without them we can't get in touch with HQ, it's better to run and survive," Emily replied.

Her partner nodded weakly in relief. "Sounds like a plan, Ems."

Jal's four eyes blinked anxiously as he guided their cruiser out of the center of New Thebes. Now that they were out of the downtown core the density of skycars had dropped, allowing Ja'laral the freedom to relax a bit as he no longer needed to maintain a state of intense concentration to avoid a mid-air collision.

But that loosening of the reins only allowed his mind to wander towards more nerve-wracking concerns, such as the state of his family. Communications had gone down maybe half an hour before the outbreak had even started, and as such he had no idea whether or not Margaret and the girls were safe back at the apartment.

"You think Margaret will be okay?" Jal asked his partner nervously.

Emily looked at the batarian seated beside her. When Ja'laral Rakan had joined the force six years prior and had been assigned to her as partner, she'd originally thought him to be a slow-thinking, useless meatbag. Spineless even, Jal'aral wasn't particularly good at fighting or shooting or even apprehending a common criminal.

When he'd started showing interest in her friend Margaret, she'd almost shot him.

But over the years, she'd come to learn that Jal wasn't as slow-thinking as she'd thought. He liked to analyze all the facts, details, and possibilities before committing to a course of action, which unfortunately had given others the impression that he was a bit stupid.

And although he wasn't a fighter, he was astounding when it came to interacting with people. He knew instinctively how to tailor his mannerisms, body language, and voice pitch to calm and connect with individuals from all walks of life and every different species. He was detail-oriented in his reports, meticulous with his paperwork, and knew Anhur law like the back of his hand.

Above all, he was kind to Margaret. The two had started a relationship some time after he'd been made Emily's partner, and had been nothing but amazing to her ever since. The interspecies couple had adopted a human and a batarian girl and lived in a nice apartment complex right at the edge of New Thebes. Jal started out as a rookie, grew into being her partner, and became her friend.

"They'll be fine, Jal. We'll get Marge and the girls out," Emily promised.

Jal nodded and smiled. He looked out of the window at the streets below. They were flying maybe twenty meters from street-level, giving him a good view of the chaos below.

Even in the outskirts of the city he could see many of the creatures running amok below, pouncing on civilians and savaging them. Several of the larger ones moved ponderously down the street, absorbing bullets from a few determined cops and armed civilians.

New Thebes was the capital of Anhur, a colony world in the Amun System, within the Eagle Nebula. Anhur was one of the most well-established colony worlds out in the Terminus Systems – not as populated as Omega or Illium, but thriving with a total population of nearly five hundred and fifty million people as of 2211.

Boasting a population mainly comprised of batarians and humans, Anhur saw a rapid population bloom following the Reaper War. The Reapers had never invaded the smallish colony back during the war, and as a result Anhur saw a massive immigration of refugees escaping broken core worlds in the following decades. This influx of skilled, educated workers pulled the garden world out of the economic depression it underwent after the conclusion of the Anhur Rebellions between 2176 and 2178.

New Thebes was a city of tall skyscrapers and buildings – a little slice of Illium so to speak. Roughly twice the size of New York City, it nonetheless boasted a population nearly three times as much – roughly forty million people. Other cities were scattered across the main continent, but none were as beautiful, elegant, nor as densely populated.

It hurt Jal inside to see his beloved city like this. He could hear the screams even from within the safety of his cruiser, and could see numerous buildings on fire. He had served and defended it for the last six years and now it was all going to hell in a handbasket.

They were approaching the apartment where Jal's family lived. Jal dipped the cruiser even lower to lessen his chances of colliding with another skycar, taking it to maybe fifteen meters above ground-level.

A wave of static suddenly washed over the cruiser, causing the tiny hairs on his skin to stand straight up. Jal's four eyes blinked in confusion as the instrument panel suddenly went haywire and the controls became non-responsive.

"Shit, what the hell was that?" Emily asked.

Jal's eyes went wide. "EMP!" he cried. "Hold on to something!"

His partner immediately snapped her seatbelt in place and grabbed the handhold on the ceiling. They were about two-hundred meters away now. Thank the gods Jal had decided to fly low, maybe they'd survive this after all.

The batarian officer spotted the parking lot of a shopping complex appear ahead. The way the cruiser was headed, they were going to land right in the parking lot. Either they'd pancake onto the ground and die, or they'd enter at an angle flat enough to slide down the lot and disperse their kinetic energy.

Jal closed all four eyes and prayed to whatever gods might be listening that he'd get to see his family one last time.

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Planet Anhur – New Thebes, city outskirt._

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Constable Ja'laral Rakan)_

"Jal… Jal! Ja'laral, wake the fuck up you hairy bastard!"

Jal groaned and brought a hand up to rub his eyes. He could feel heat against his skin, and a strip of pain across his chest where his seatbelt had likely dug into his flesh and left a line of ugly bruises, but everything else was blurry.

Slowly he blinked away the blurriness and things started coming into focus. He could see the cracked windshield of his cruiser, distorting the view outside, and a wreath of flames that had begun to well up around the car.

"Jal, the car's on fire, we've got to move!" hissed Emily. The batarian looked at his partner beside him. Emily had a gash down her forehead and a bruise on her cheek but otherwise looked to be in decent shape. Her Predator pistol was out and her seatbelt was already off.

Jal groaned and slowly flexed each limb, making sure that nothing was broken. Satisfied, he unclipped his seatbelt, muttering a quick prayer of thanks as it detached itself without issue. He'd seen enough movies to know that the hero's seatbelt always jammed after a car crash, especially in movies involving zombies.

He slapped at the emergency door controls with a hairy fist and with a bang the doors ejected. He stumbled out onto the pavement, careful to avoid the flames, and looked around while his partner did the same.

They were ten meters from the entrance to the mall. His apartment complex was literally on the other side.

A chorus of howls caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up and the batarian officer shivered.

"Jal, we're close. Let's cut through the mall and head straight for the apartment," Emily suggested quietly. She scanned the parking lot with her Predator pistol, wary for any of the creatures that could suddenly appear from behind a parked car.

"Aren't you afraid that there will be more of the things inside? And in a confined space?" Jal asked.

"Beats standing out here in the open where we can be spotted and flanked, besides, we're running short on time. EMP blast probably disabled every transport in the city. We need to find your family and get out fast."

Jal nodded. "Sounds good, I'll take point."

The batarian readied his pistol and made his way up the steps. Inside the mall chaos reigned as the creatures hunted the survivors in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

"Don't stop for anything or anyone!" Emily yelled. She brought her pistol up mid-stride and without stopping put three rounds into a Corpser that had taken an interest in the two officers, knocking it onto its ass. Without wasting the time required to confirm her kill, Emily shoved Jal in the back and the two officers kept going.

Jal cursed as he watched Corpsers jump from the upper tiers of the mall onto the backs of fleeing survivors. He shot one Corpser in the knee just as it was about to pounce on a batarian shopper and shot another one that was chasing a salarian and two humans down another path but otherwise didn't stop moving.

A few of the shoppers stopped to yell and beg for the officers to assist but both Emily and Jal ignored them. To stay and fight was to die, and neither one of them wanted that. Both were willing to ignore their desperate cries for help if it meant that Jal got to see his family one more time.

Emily vaulted over a fallen kiosk and shot a Corpser that was about to pounce on Jal. They were about halfway through the mall now. Jal was breathing hard, no longer possessing the energy required to point and shoot his weapon as he ran.

"Keep going! We're almost through!" Emily yelled.

Howls and snarls and desperate screams rang heavily in their ears as the two officers abandoned what little efforts they made to save the hapless civilians and instead focused their attention entirely on their own survival.

He watched as a Corpser tore into a human shopper not six feet away from him, watched as a pack of tiny, mechanical creatures crawled into the throat of a slain batarian and begin to convert him into another of the creatures. Although he didn't stop to check, behind him he could hear a mass of rapid footsteps and a cacophony of snarls.

Finally, the two officers crashed out of the doors and back into the street. Jal found his second wind and dashed up the steps towards the entrance of the apartment complex. He halted at the top when he noticed that his partner was no longer beside him.

"Ems? Emily?" Jal called out.

He turned around and saw his partner firing at a pack of the creatures that had followed them out of the mall.

"Jal, go! I'll hold them off!" Emily screamed. She fired at the nearest Corpser, a quartet of shots hammering into its open maw and shattering its metal teeth. The Corpser dropped to the ground, only for two more to replace it. She fired desperately at those too but they refused to fall. The one on the ground that she had just killed began to convulse as Crawlers tore out of it and more howls could be heard from within the mall.

"EMS!" Jal roared.

"GO!" Emily screamed back.

With one last look at his partner, Jal ran into the building, tears stinging his four eyes.

He couldn't stop to mourn Emily, not while his family was still in danger. He could hear more howls and moans from within the apartment complex and Jal knew that his family was running out of time.

He dashed for the stairwell, not bothering to try for the elevator. The EMP had likely knocked out nearly all of the electronics and nearly every single transport in the city. Jal didn't fancy wasting time waiting around for an elevator that might never come. Besides, he could swore that he heard growling and snarling from within the elevator box itself.

He began to dash up the stairs, breath heaving, sweat dripping into each of his four eyes. His uniform was dirty and in tatters from both the escape from the city and the cruiser crash. His legs were burning and screaming in protest but still Jal pressed on, fear for his family and adrenaline keeping him going.

Eventually he reached the twenty-ninth floor and shoulder-checked the stairwell door open. The heavy door slammed into a Corpser that just happened to be standing behind it, knocking it snarling back into a wall.

The batarian officer ran through and shot the creature twice in the head and a few times in the stomach for good measure. Satisfied, he turned and sprinted down the hall, his breath coming in ragged gasps for air after having just sprinted through a mall and up nearly twenty-nine damn flights of stairs. Jal swore that if he made it out of this he'd pay more attention to his fitness in the future.

Several of the creatures sounded like they'd already broken into a few of the apartments, this fact serving only to fan the spark of worry and anxiety in his chest into a raging inferno of fear and desperation.

His apartment door was up ahead. The door was splintered open. He could hear snarling inside.

Jal sobbed and ran into his apartment. He ran into the living room and came upon the sight of his family, cowering in one corner as a Corpser snarled and advanced menacingly towards them.

"Jal!" screamed his wife, Margaret.

"Daddy!" screamed his girls.

Jal raised his Predator and aimed it at the creature's head. Time seemed to slow down and his heart seemed to stop beating as his finger squeezed down on the trigger.

Nothing. His weapon was dry.

Jal cursed and tossed the weapon aside. The creature turned to face him and in that brief instant its warped and twisted visage curled into the slightest hint of a smile. A line of spittle ran down its torn jaws to pool on the floor and it turned back around and continued its advance towards his family.

The batarian officer took a deep breath. He looked at his girls Annabelle and Elsana, both just five years old and about to start pre-school. He looked at his wife Margaret. She was his rock, his heart, he'd known she'd become that ever since he'd first laid eyes on her all those years ago, back when his partner had introduced her as they were all going out for drinks.

Batarians and humans had never been the best of friends. The Skyllian Blitz, the Anhur Rebellions, even the Slaver Fringe Wars all seemed to point at the fact that batarians and humans were destined to forever be locked in a cycle of conflict. To this day, many batarians still committed what amounts to hate crimes to humans. Maybe not so much on Anhur, but definitely in more batarian-centric planets and worlds such as Omega.

But not Ja'laral Rakan. Like many of the newer generations of batarians, he believed in galactic cooperation and unity between the species. He was very ready to cast aside the old ways, ways that involved slavery, piracy, and other actions that almost every other species considered immoral.

That was his wife, his human wife. The one he'd raised two children with and the one that he loved with all his heart. The one standing there with her arms held protectively in front his two children, staring death in the form of a twisted, demonic creature defiantly in the face. He had to do something.

Many of Jal's friends liked to joke that he was slow, but Jal never let those jokes get to him, because he simply knew that it was not true. He liked to consider all possible angles of a situation before acting, and seeing as every potential action possessed a myriad of different consequences and factors affecting them, sometimes that took more time than he'd like to when it came to deciding what to do. But no matter what they said about Jal, Jal knew that he always settled on what many would consider the right decision, even in a set of convoluted, unfavorable circumstances.

And Jal knew what the right decision was in this very moment.

With a roar, Jal ran at the Corpser. The heavy batarian tackled the creature and carried the both of them straight towards the window pane that made up one side of the living room.

His arms may have been wrapped around the creature but his four eyes never left his family, not even as he felt the creatures talons dig hard into his back, drawing blood. His eyes stayed transfixed on their faces, drinking in every last detail, every ounce of love that they looked at him with. That was his wife, those were his girls. They'd survive.

The window pane shattered.


	20. Chapter 20 - The List

**Chapter 20 – The List**

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium — Presidium Apartments, Unit N6_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

 _The sun rose over a forest of gleaming white spires, its light reflecting off the beautifully-wrought silver metal that gave the majestic structures their fluid, graceful form. Most of them were straight, and yet the way that the towers spiraled and curved in some places gave them an organic feel._

 _The sky was a brilliant shade of blue, and in that unfamiliar sky I could see the massive silhouettes of no less than three planetary bodies. Massive overlords of blue, green, and red that arched beyond the horizon, wondrously close and yet I knew them to be at least tens of thousands of miles away._

 _I felt myself being pulled down by some mysterious force, down towards the city of white spires. As I flew in between the forest of silver I looked around me. Lights could be seen from within the towering structures. Squinting, I could see shapes moving within._

 _After some passage of time I felt my feet touch down gently on a silver road. Around me the city bustled with life. Strange beings with blue skin, glowing white-blue eyes and odd, fleshy tendrils hanging from their cheeks and chins like alien beards moved about with purpose and determination._

 _Some were male, some were female. Others looked like they had seen many years while others looked to have barely seen a dozen. They all smiled at me, dressed in strange, colorful clothing, and some waved as they passed me by. They all moved around me like how a river might curl around a jut of rock._

 _Their heads were odd, humanoid in shape but with great plates of bone that swept backwards on their heads, like those of the krogan, but their plates were greater in number and much, much smaller. Some of the garments the beings wore revealed their arms and lower extremities, revealing smooth blue skin that had the potential to be colored a dozen different shades._

 _The beings didn't have hair, no. The bone plates of the females flowed down their necks and onto their shoulders to form organic headdresses that gave the appearance of hair while males had much shorter and thicker ones._

 _They were a beautiful people. The males were tall, taller than me and much more well-muscled, and the females were lithe and moved like running water. They all smiled at me and went about their daily lives. I could see hundreds of them entering and coming out of a variety of different spires. What looked to be like kiosks, stands and shops littered the silver road, but with a cleanliness and orderliness that I've yet to see in all my years of travelling this galaxy._

 _I took a tentative step forwards. Above me flew sleek, silver vehicles the likes of which I've never seen, hurtling above like shiny comets. I stared at them for a while, entranced by their beauty._

 _I felt a pressure on my hand and looked down. A small child had taken hold of my hand, tugging it and smiling at me. Her bony plates looked soft and small and her tendrils lacked the length of the adults of her species, but like the rest of the beings she had light blue skin and glowing blue and white eyes._

 _She smiled, barring tiny, white teeth in a friendly grin. She had two small and sharp incisors, like a cat's. She said something to me in a musically lyrical tongue. Their language, whatever it was, was beautiful. Just like their city. Just like their people._

 _I starred at her in confusion, a small smile on my lips. "I don't understand," I replied._

 _The child merely laughed and repeated the phrase again, this time adding another phrase as well._

 _I knelt down so that I was level with her and smiled once more. I gently took her hand in one hand and rested my other softly atop her shoulder._

 _My brow furrowed ever so slightly in confusion. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying," I told her once more._

 _She smiled and looked at me once more, and in her eyes I saw humor, laughter, and a bit of sadness._

 _A loud horn suddenly erupted in the air. That musical, lyrical language quickly transformed into screams and shouts of terror and panic._

 _I felt a burst of heat from behind me. I turned to look but the light was too intense, too strong._

 _I knelt and picked up the young child and began running down the street. She tried to say something to me but I still didn't understand what she was saying. More and more of the people joined me in my run as we struggled to escape the heat._

 _I looked up, the sky began to darken and black tendrils brought death and ruin and destruction upon the glimmering city._

 _I saw a flash of ruby light, a sound like a thunderclap, then a wave of heat the likes of which I'd never felt before._

 _And then the horn._

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium — Presidium Apartments, Unit N6_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

I awoke with a gasp and curled my fingers around my sheets. I coughed and groaned as I struggled to shake off the drudges of my nightmare. That same dream again, that same stupid, reoccurring, fucking dream. It had plagued me for the last six weeks and by God, I was reaching the end of my rope.

I got up. My heart hammered wildly against my chest and I could feel a light sheen of sweat on my torso that amplified the coldness of the room.

I shivered and quietly padded over to my refresher. Without flicking on the lights I made my way over to the sink, activated it, and splashed some water on my face.

I toweled off and moved back into my room. I activated my omni-tool. It was in the early hours of the morning, about two hours into the night-cycle of the Citadel, meaning that I had about four hours of darkness left.

Once again the dream had left me wide awake. It had been plaguing me ever since we'd escaped from the Hippocrates and the terrors aboard. We'd arrived on the Citadel less than two days ago after a lengthy trip through half of Council space and I'd hoped that the dream would stop once I was back on familiar ground, in my familiar routine, but so far I'd had no such luck.

It was never the same location. Sometimes the spires looked different, the sky different, but the people always looked the same, they were beautiful, graceful, speaking a language that I could not understand.

And the ending, the ending was always the same. The horns and the heat and the black tendrils were always the same.

I sighed and pulled on a pair of dark jeans that I'd been wearing the day before. I grabbed the same plain old white T-shirt I'd worn as well. It was a bit baggy but still serviceable, and as I slid it over my shoulders I gave it the good old sniff test. A debatable pass.

As an added afterthought, I grabbed my dark blue leather jacket from my hanger and slipped it on. This episode had been particularly bad, but the beauty of being on the Citadel was that it didn't have to be one of those nights where I had to just lie in bed, counting the hours before the night-cycle ended. My hand groped blindly in the dark for one of my knives that I kept on my bedstand. Finding it, I slipped one of my two Talon combat knives in a sheath on my belt, however, I left my Predator pistol in the upper right corner of my bed, where it usually sat. I doubted that I'd need it.

I quietly opened my door, only for the bright white light of Cade's gaming terminal to immediately assault my retinas. Against the darkness of the small apartment, the intensity of the light from Cade's computer was amplified nearly tenfold.

My friend and fellow Spectre turned his head at the sound of my door opening. "Hey, can't sleep?"

I sighed and rubbed my jaw. At least I'd finally managed to re-establish a steady relationship with my razor in the last few weeks.

"Same dream, might head over to Steve's for a while," I admitted.

Cade took off his headset and spun around in his chair to face me. He was bare from the waist up, wearing nothing but a pair of turian pajama pants.

"Are you done with your list, yet?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No, got a couple more names to go through."

Cade sighed and scratched his mandible. "I know the doc said it'd be a good way to work through your problems, but from the looks of it all its doing is adding to your misplaced sense of guilt," he told me.

I crossed my arms and looked down. The Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance had their own personal cadre of psychiatrists and psychologists that helped Spectres work through the psychological hazards of their jobs between missions. Usually about the people they lost or couldn't save. Not every Spectre used their services – Cade most certainly didn't – and although I never had as well, I had promised Cade that I'd seek some measure of help in coping with the events aboard the ship.

And so there I was, sitting in an office while some asari with a dozen Ph.D's told me to make a list of the people I thought I had failed to save, then reach out to their families to give them some semblance of closure. Well, at least to the extent that the Council would allow me to disseminate highly classified information.

It had been all too easy to draw up the list. Starting with the fireteam that had given their lives to allow me to escape from the Prometheus Labs back when the outbreak started and ending with the valiant sacrifices of Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus and Lieutenant-Commander Syriah Barthilus. Each name and face was seared into my mind like an angry brand, haunting me every time I closed my eyes. In conjunction with the reoccurring nightmares I was beginning to feel like I was starting to drown.

"Maybe you should ditch the list," he continued. "None of those deaths were your fault, they all made their decisions. Making you do this sounds more like psychological torture than some kind of attempt at closure. All its doing is making you out to be responsible for all their deaths when nothing could be farther from the truth."

I sighed and moved to grab my boots. I slid them on one by one in the darkness and did up the laces.

"I'm fine, Cade. The list is almost done and I think that in the end it'll be good for me. Thanks for your concern, but I'll be all right. I just need some air."

A few muted voices sounded from Cade's headset, calling for him to return to the game.

"Hey, how about you get on Galaxy of Fantasy and boost my new rogue with your paladin? Then I'll take my hunter and boost your death knight?" he suggested. "Accer's on right now leveling his mage. I don't have the heart to tell him he sucks."

I smiled. "Maybe tomorrow, after we're done training. We're working out separately but we're going to be running shooting drills together, right?"

"You bet your ass. Maybe hand-to-hand the day after once Percival's had enough alone time with Gwen," Cade chuckled.

"Sounds good, I'll be back in a few hours."

"Alright."

I grabbed my credit chip and made sure that my new biotic amp was working and that my Talon was sharp. My omni-tool was secured on my left arm and I turned the tracking feature on, just in case, I grabbed my kinetic shield generator and powered that on as well, in the event that anyone with a grudge decided to take a shot at me.

Doubtful, in order for one to foster a grudge, first they had to survive an encounter with me. Ha.

Satisfied that I had everything that I might need, I opened the door and left to try and forget about my dreams.

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium — Serenity_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

"Another one, brother?"

I nodded and tapped my credit chip on Steve's omni-tool as he poured me another few fingers of whiskey. Unlike many of the patrons, I hated the concept of running up a tab, much preferring to pay per drink.

It was something that Steve the bartender appreciated.

The Citadel was the space station that never slept, and so the Serenity had maybe two dozen patrons seated at various tables and booths, even in the late hours of the night-cycle. I was the only one left at the actual bar, a scene so clichéd that a part of me had winced at having found myself in such a ridiculously lame position.

The rest of the patrons were in groups of two, three, or even up to a dozen. I could see a turian and a quarian clearly on a date, a group of white-collared office workers of various species celebrating what must have been some kind of victory at work, two krogan talking over a few pints of ryncol and a few asari chatting leisurely as they sipped on some sort of fruity, purple concoction.

I drained the whiskey in a single gulp, Steve raised an eyebrow and nodded at the empty glass in my hand. "Haven't seen you or the guys in a while, you been on mission?"

"Something like that," I grunted.

Steven the bartender's prosthetic leg whirred beneath him as he moved from one corner of the bar to the next. Steve had lost his leg during one of the final battles of the Slaver Fringe Wars. He hadn't fought on Balak as Percival had, but had instead fought on one of the planetary defense cannons that had orbited it. His entire battalion had been split up into their respective companies in order to take out the cannons, giving the troops that Percival had been a part of a chance to land on the slaver planet.

He had lost his leg after a particularly violent encounter with a batarian slaver wearing bladed armor. He was honorably discharged a while after that at the rank of Lieutenant and instead of re-upping and getting stuck behind a desk had opted to open this little slice of heaven right on the boundary between the Presidium and the more urbane, well-worn Lower Wards.

Due to his location he regularly received a mixed bag of patrons – white-collar Presidium workers, Lower Ward dock workers, etc etc. Steve ran a clean bar and a safe one with the help of a trio of Krogan brothers who acted as security, maintenance, and the occasional distiller. He had a few human and asari waitresses and an excellent salarian chef who supplied the bar with a small but quality menu.

The Serenity was where Cade, Percival and I often hung out in between missions. Steven got along well with the N7 given both their military backgrounds and Cade was always everyone's best friend.

"You wanna talk about it?" Steve pressed.

I shook my head and signaled for one more. It would be my fourth and my last one, that was the limit that I set for myself.

"Nah, can't. You know how it is," I shrugged.

Steve laughed and poured himself a drink as well. He raised it, allowing me to clink our glasses together.

"No, I don't. But I know how you are," he chuckled.

I shrugged again and scratched the back of my neck.

"Yeah, I can tell your mission was a tough one," Steve admitted, "You only ever come in here alone after a mission that went south, otherwise you're always coming in here with Percy and Cade, celebrating another successful one."

Steven looked around the bar and eyed the rest of his patrons warily before leaning in close and dropping his voice. "You'd tell me if I should be worried, right? I still know guys back in the Alliance. If there's something you need you tell me and I'll do my best to help."

I took another sip and sighed. There weren't any Reaper Cores on the Citadel, at least not to my knowledge. But I mean, were the Reaper Cores activated and the DNA inside allowed to infect everyone else in the galaxy, it'd be a small consolation.

"No, The Citadel should be safe, I can't say much but I can tell you that much at least. And thanks for the offer."

The former alliance marine-turned-bartender nodded. "Thanks man."

When the Reapers had transported the Citadel to Earth during the Reaper War, everyone assumed that every person aboard the massive space installation had been killed and processed.

Shepard's last communications had supported this theory. She had reported massive heaps of bodies of various species. When the Crucible had been activated and that energy surge had emerged from the massive device, the galaxy had thought that they'd join them.

It wasn't until after the smoke cleared that we learned that there had been survivors aboard the Citadel. Almost 85% if you believe it or not. The Reapers had sent in a sizeable amount of ground troops into the Citadel in an attempt to capture and process the inhabitants into more foot soldiers for their army, but had neglected to send enough, instead keeping the majority of their soldiers on Earth to fight the remnants of the Systems Alliance stationed there and Shepard's galactic coalition.

C-sec and the station had fought back admirably, sealing bulkheads and sections and venting them, killing numerous Reaper troops. Although 15% fatalities sounded a lot – roughly 2 million people – most of them had gone down fighting, not being processed into synthetic paste to create more Reapers. C-sec lost nearly 80% of their number but their valiant efforts and sacrifices had made the difference in what could have easily been a hopeless situation.

Steve had been on the station during the Reaper Invasion. He may have been a young child at the time but he had soon learned that the crown jewel of galactic civilization wasn't as safe as he'd been led to believe. It had been a hard truth for a young boy to learn. He had been old enough to remember Reaper troops massacring citizens, herding them into camps, and generally being fucking assholes.

Steven drained his drink and yawned in an attempt to ease the burning in his throat. "You know, as a matter of professional courtesy I make it a point not to tell the stories you and the boys have told me about your missions to anyone else, but sometimes I wish I had, if only to make these people understand exactly how much you guys do for them."

He gestured at the patrons in his bar. Both the turian and the quarian had started cuddling while the asari had finished their drinks and were now simply lounging in leisure. One of the krogan was laughing as another was telling what appeared to be a joke and the workers were now having what appeared to be a drinking contest between a slight, human female and a large, brown-plated turian.

Steve smiled and nodded at me. "We owe you a lot, for keeping the horrors away."

I looked back behind me, drinking in the sight of all these people living, laughing, and loving. Able to do so because of people like Cade, like Percival, like Sergeant Mardinus, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus, Lieutenant Johnathan Bradford and Sarah. They would never know the price they had paid to buy their safety. And it was a price that we'd keep on paying, happily, no matter how much it might cost.

I was still the only one seated at the bar, but from the distinctive clack of an approaching pair of high-heels and the scent of that familiar perfume I surmised that it would not stay that way for long.

"Speaking of horrors…" Steve whispered. Without another word he grabbed a few bottles and made his way over to where the crowd of workers were still celebrating, offering free drinks on the house to the raucous cheers of his patrons.

A tall, raven-haired woman with hazel eyes slid casually into the barstool beside me. She was wearing a black, low-cut dress and black high-heels. Her eyes were rimmed with mascara and eyeliner and a series of gold bracelets hung on her left hand. Most would consider her beautiful, stunning even. Those who actually knew her might consider her a bitch.

"Figures I'd find you here," she smiled mischievously. Her voice had the lightest of English accents but she looked as if she could have passed for any of the European and middle-eastern nationalities. I rubbed my brow and silently counted to three in my head.

She patiently awaited my response as I internally prepared myself to deal with her. Eventually I decided that no amount of time would ever prepare me for dealing with her, so I sighed and downed the rest of my drink in one swallow. Fuck, I was at four, wasn't I?

"What do you want, Elle? And why are you dressed like an escort?" I said quietly.

"An escort!" she gasped, mortified. "Is that any way to talk to a friend?"

I sighed again, louder this time.

"I actually had a list of nouns ready, but that was the nicest one," I told her. I wasn't in the mood for this and as much as I didn't want to, I knew I was getting sucked in already. She knew me and she knew me well.

Elektra smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "If you must know, I just came back from business. Heard through the grapevine that you and the boys also touched down just two days ago so I figured I'd come and say hi."

I looked at her oddly. It wouldn't do to appear touched by her concern, she'd only use that to her advantage. "So what, you're following me now?"

"Hardly," Elektra sniffed, "It's not like you have anywhere to go. You're either here, down in the Spectre offices, or back at your apartment, playing that stupid game with Cade."

Galaxy of Fantasy was not stupid.

"Speaking of, how is Cade and Percival?" Elektra asked. "I assume they went on mission with you, since you all went dark about seven months ago. World tour?"

I sighed and signaled for Steven to make his way over. He gave me a pleading look but I stared crossly at him until he got his handicapped ass out of his seat and started hobbling his way back to the bar. Time to break my four drink rule. Also he really didn't need to hobble, not with that top-of-the-line prosthetic that I'd gotten him two Christmases ago. What a drama queen.

Steven poured another few fingers into my glass and then poured an ever larger one for himself.

"Elektra, good to see you again," he said with a grimace.

Elektra smiled brilliantly at him, "Be a dear, Steven. One vodka martini, with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken, not stirred, please. And put it on his tab."

Steve sighed and looked at me sympathetically, but all I could do was tap my credit chip against his omni-tool and pay for the full amount. Sometimes you had to lose the battle to win the war.

We sat in blessed silence as Steven prepared her drink. After it was finished, she took a slight sip, closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure.

"Thank you, Steven, perfectly done as always."

"No problem, Elektra," Steve said cautiously.

"Now beat it, the grown-ups have to talk," she grinned.

Steve rolled his eyes and made his way back to interact with his other patrons. I sighed for the twelfth time since Elektra sat down and stood up from my stool. Elektra watched as I went behind the bar and grabbed the rest of the bottle Steve had been topping me off from, setting it down in front of where I was seated. Steve looked over and nodded, but otherwise gave me a look to say that I'd be on my own from here on out.

Elektra crossed her legs, causing her dress to ride up high enough to attract the attention of several of the patrons. Not a single soul came up to say hi to her, however, or to drop a cheap pick-up line. Her amp was partially visible on the nape of her neck, as was mine. No one wanted to be blasted to smithereens.

She took another sip, then set her drink down.

"So, seven months, world tour. You don't call, you don't text, I was starting to get a bit worried you know," she pouted.

I shrugged at my glass. "Perks of the job, you know how it is."

She grabbed my chin with one hand and tilted my face towards her so that I'd be forced to meet her eyes. Hazel eyes stared into my blue ones and her smile instantly disappeared.

"I don't know, that's the problem," she began. "What I do know is that about six weeks ago, all Systems Alliance chatter from the SSV Hippocrates went dark. When I tried to get in touch with my contacts aboard the ship, not one of them sent word back."

She downed the rest of her drink, daintily pulled a napkin from a dispenser and gently wiped her mouth, careful not to smear her lipstick.

"And finally, just a week ago I got a call telling me to cut my trip short. Tell me what's going on, Cloud," she insisted.

She was going to find out one way or another. Might as well be from me, at least that way I could frame the situation to my benefit and she'd consider it a favor that I could later cash in on. In a professional way of course, because I am a man of absolute integrity.

I looked around, wary of any eavesdroppers. The turian and quarian couple had left along with the krogan, leaving just the workers and the asari. Steve had the workers occupied and the asari had actually moved to join their festivities, conveniently grouping all the patrons on the other side of the bar, as far away from us as they could be.

I moved my head a fraction closer to hers and started gently swaying in my seat, a wide grin on my face, trying my best to look like any other inebriated, intoxicated adult male who was simply hitting on an attractive female, just in case someone was watching or recording me.

Elektra picked up on my act and immediately plastered a sloppy smile on her face. She slid a hand up my thigh and used the other to prop her chin up.

"We'd just wrapped up a mission on Talis Fia we received a priority message from the Council," I began. "Are you familiar with the phenomenon on Earth and Thessia?"

Elektra furrowed her brows and nodded. "Vaguely, I heard that there were some unsettling implications regarding the phenomenon appearing on Thessia. Nothing new about the situation on Earth though, just that it's getting worse. Hard to know more when no one has been down there in years."

Our faces were about six inches apart now, allowing us to speak in the lowest of whispers. I subtly turned on my omni-tool and used its scanner function to detect whether or not she had any bugs on her or whether there were any in the surrounding vicinity. Nothing came up. Either she was actually playing straight with me or she'd gotten her hands on something even Spectre-grade scanners couldn't detect. She noticed what I was doing and rolled her eyes.

"Way to be subtle" she hissed. "A drunk male hitting on a female doesn't fiddle with his omni-tool mid-flirt, you bean."

Fair point, goddamn it. "Fine, well as you know the Systems Alliance Research and Development Division were tasked with studying the phenomenon on Earth," I began quietly.

"Yes," Elektra nodded again. "They've been doing so for the past decade, or something like that. Project Prometheus."

I poured another few fingers into my glass and took a small sip. "Correct, but what you might not know was that the next phase of Project Prometheus involved the eggheads activating a fucking Reaper Core."

Elektra's mouth flew wide open and the briefest spark of blue danced between her fingers. "Are they insane?"

It took all my self-control to withhold a scowl. "That's what I told them. Either way we didn't find out it was a Reaper Core until we were actually aboard the Hippocrates."

Elektra rubbed her eyes and tried to dispel the shock evident on her face. Like me, she was familiar with all the cloak-and-dagger shit that the Council put us through. "Okay, so what were you sent there for?"

"We were sent to make sure nothing fucked up happened, and if something did we'd handle it and contain it. Spoiler alert, some fucked up shit happened. Good thing the Council had their best Spectre on it."

She looked away for a second, amused. "Second best."

I brushed her light comment aside and pressed on. "They activated the Core, Elle. Then everything went to absolute fucking shit."

I had to close my eyes for a second as the wave of memories hit me full force. Memories of the Reaper Core changing doctors Singh, Messner, and Landry, turning them into massive, synthetic monsters. The screams and shouts of terror from their fellow scientists as the head researchers of the Prometheus Project began to kill them one by one, converting them into these mindless, twisted hunters hell-bent on slaughtering the crew and raising them as more of their own.

Sarah, the twisted doctor Devaris, the saboteurs, the Chimera, all of it surged up and threatened to break down all the walls that I'd spent the last six weeks putting up.

"The Reaper Core changed the crew, twisted them into these monstrous, synthetic creatures unlike anything that we'd ever seen, not even during the Reaper War, Ellie," I whispered.

"They started hunting down the crew, started converting them into more of these things. We don't know how it happened but we suspect that it was the work of some saboteur cell that had managed to embed itself within the ship's crew."

I briefly outlined all I knew about Locke, the turian, the salarian, and Olivia. Elektra's face went still and her already pale skin went a few shades lighter.

"None of my informants told me anything about this," she whispered. "Mordred? A stolen Systems Alliance cruiser? How could they have pulled this off?"

I shook my head. "No, it caught us all completely by surprise. Percival, Cade and I went over the Hippocrates' personnel files after we escaped. All of them were vetted and placed aboard the ship in various capacities some time ago, none of them were recent plants. Whoever planned this planned it well."

Elektra nodded, unsettled by the implication that whoever planned this could have more saboteurs seeded within the Systems Alliance. The fact that none of her informants had revealed even the slightest hint of this well-masked subterfuge worried her even further.

"Okay, so back to these creatures. Where did they come from?" she asked.

I sighed and took another long pull from my glass. "One of the saboteurs sent me a video recording. I don't have access to it right now but basically they believe that there's something in the DNA of a certain subset of Reaper Cores that's capable of infecting other living beings. I think that when we activated the Core, we activated the DNA."

"That is messed up, how are we just finding this out now?" Elektra asked.

I shrugged. "No idea. One of the survivors aboard the ship was a biologist by the name of Jaelen Veers. He conducted an analysis on some of the tissue samples we obtained from the creatures. He discovered that all the victims had evidence of some sort of alien DNA in their genomes, something that takes over and rewrites your body."

Elektra shuddered. "And do we know where this DNA came from?"

I shook my head and sighed. "No clue. My gut tells me that it came from one of the advanced races that the Reapers harvested and turned into the Reaper Cores. A researcher in the recording the saboteurs gave me hinted as much, but the file was corrupted so I wasn't able to watch the whole thing."

She grabbed the glass of whiskey that I'd been nursing and downed it in one gulp. That being done she grabbed the bottle from the bar and poured herself another one and downed it too. The smile on her face had been completely wiped away.

If I could describe the Elektra's resting face, the word that I'd use would be flirtatious. Percival's would be heroic, like he was about to say some kind of speech or rescue a kitten from a tree. Cade's would be amused, as if he was watching a video that wasn't funny enough to laugh out loud at but was still funny enough so that you'd smile slightly. Camilla's would be determined, and I've been told that I can come across as a bit stone-faced.

But the expression Elektra had now? Her flirtatious, playful mask that she often chose to hide behind was completely gone, like drops of dew in the morning sun or some other equally pseudo-poetic shit. All that was left was a mess of worry, anxiety, and fear. That was the Elektra I knew, the Elektra that I remembered all those years ago. The real Elektra, not the woman that she insisted on have the rest of us believe that she'd become.

"Tell it to me from the very beginning, Cloud. I want to hear every word," she said firmly.

I sighed and grabbed my glass out of her hands, refilled it and downed it as well.

We sat for the better part of two hours. I could see the Presidium begin to shift out of its night cycle and into the day. I told her everything, starting from when we boarded, to the start of the outbreak, then our journey to secure the data, to fix the engines, to remove the lockdown, our fight against the saboteurs and the creatures, me shooting the captain of the Hippocrates, my lone confrontation with the Chimera and then Olivia, and finally culminating with our escape and the heroic sacrifice of the two turians.

Elektra listened for the full two hours, uncharacteristically quiet, only speaking up when she asked me to repeat a detail or clarify a certain act. By the time I was done, the room was starting to spin, hard. I had finished the entire bottle

And not only was the bottle finished, but I also felt like I was reliving the entire ordeal once more. All the pain and horror and fear that I'd felt at the time, that I'd thought I'd put behind me once I left the ship, all of it came crashing back. My vision blurred, but whether or not it was from all the alcohol or tears was something that I could not tell.

The only thing I didn't tell her was about Sarah. Towards the end of my recounting of events I was having trouble stringing together full, comprehensible sentences and slurring a good portion of my words. When I finally finished, she looked at me with sadness and shock.

"Oh god, Cloud. I can't even begin to imagine… Thank god you three made it out okay," she said quietly.

I looked away. Steve had left an hour ago, he had set the bar to auto-lock once I had left.

A wave of vertigo suddenly hit me and I had to close my eyes. The empty glass rolled out of my fingers and fell to the ground. I stooped to try and catch it but missed.

It fell and shattered into a million pieces on the floor.

I got out of my chair and tried to kneel to pick up the broken shards. The entire room was spinning and I felt the contents of my stomach rebelling against the sudden movement, trying violently to escape my control.

I heard her stand up as well. I felt a pair of smooth, soft arms slide across my chest, beneath my armpits, and around my back. "Here, I've got you," a distorted voice said.

I mumbled something, I wasn't sure what I said, maybe something about a list.

I felt myself being steered towards the door. The distorted voice beginning to talk again but the words failed to penetrate my alcohol-induced haze.

Then I felt nothing at all, and I sighed in relief.

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium, Silversun Strip — Tiberius Towers_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

I rolled out of bed, trying my best not to disturb the form beside me. The slightest hint of sunlight had begun to sneak through the edges of the heavy blackout curtain that covered the windows.

The bedroom was large and the bed was nearly three times as big and ten times as comfortable as the one I had back in my place. The custom dressers looked more expensive than my Snakebite and the nightstand looked to be carved by hand from Rannochian wood. A massive closet filled with dresses was connected to one side of the room and dozens of expensive shoes lay strewn around the floor.

You could probably buy a military fighter jet with the contents of this room. Someone evidently spent a lot more time looting bad guys than I did on the job.

I groaned as I massaged my lower back, where the kinetic shield generator and the knife had dug into it. As quietly as I could, I padded softly to the door, opened it, and slipped out.

Once I was in the apartment's equally massive, ostentatious living room, I pulled up a list on my omni-tool and looked at it.

I stumbled outside, still half-drunk, and began my slow walk to the location on said list.

The Silversun Strip was the Las Vegas of the Citadel. The streets were clean and shiny and filled with the affluent, all of them with smiling and laughing and chatting amongst themselves. Even at this early hour I could see people walking into its various casinos with smiles on their faces and large wallets. Fancy restaurants and stores were all open, with flashy holo-signs outside that proclaimed their wares.

A turian in a crisp suit gave me a look of derisiveness as glanced at my disheveled clothing and my unkempt hair. I couldn't blame him, even if he did stand to be knocked down a few pegs. My navy blue leather jacket was a bit crumpled and my white T-shirt technically wasn't white any more.

A couple of asari in dresses standing outside a restaurant did shoot me a few flirty glances as I approached, but when I came closer the smell of alcohol wiped those glances clean off their pretty blue faces. I ignored them and kept on walking.

I eventually reached the elevator and slapped a hand on the button, calling it to me. I stepped inside and pressed a button. The elevator would take me straight down to one of the Lower Wards, Bachjret Ward to be precise. I glanced at the list and then a map of the ward on my omni-tool. It shouldn't be too long of a walk.

I remembered closing my eyes for just a second, but I didn't wake up until I heard the chiming of the elevator indicating that I'd arrived at my location.

I stumbled out the doors and into the Lower Wards.

Bachjret was like a whole other planet compared to the Silversun Strip and the Presidium. The first thing you noticed was the people.

Unlike those who I'd seen on the Silversun Strip, these people were dressed less garishly and pretentiously. Some wore simple jumpsuits or overalls, many of them looking worn-out, threadbare, or had holes that had been haphazardly patched up with a fabric of a different color. Others had normal clothing such as the attire I was currently dressed in. Nobody was dressed like anyone you'd find up on the Presidium.

And not everyone was smiling and laughing. Sure, some were, but many other faces were also sad, angry, tired, annoyed, or straight-up depressed.

The next thing you noticed was C-sec. The Citadel's finest patrolled the streets in either pairs or groups of four, dull blue and black armor and standard-issue M-8 Avengers and M-3 Predators on their backs and on their hips. Most were turian, many were human, but there were a good number of salarians and asari.

Visually you noticed that the wards were also very different from the Presidium and Silversun Strip. They were dirtier and had a different kind of life to them. The shops were smaller and less well-lit, holo-strip advertisements would flicker here and there, and you'd even find paper posters affixed to the walls and litter in the streets. It reminded me of home.

But the wards didn't look neglected, at least, not in these parts. You'd see greater evidence of neglect the deeper you went — evidence of poverty, of drug-use, of crime, especially in the seedier parts, parts that C-sec didn't have the manpower to constantly patrol.

No, it felt more well-worn, lived-in. Real. One couldn't see and know the galaxy for what it truly was and stomach the crispness and sterility of the Presidium and its locales. The only reason why I lived there was because I'd lost a bet with Cade and ended up as his roommate. And the Serenity of course, bless that bar.

And last but not least, you noticed the smell. Whereas the Presidium constantly smelled pristine, clean, disinfected, the Lower Wards in comparison were awash with the scent of a dozen different species, their cultures and their professions. A pair of krogan walked by, smelling like gunpowder and raw meat. A batarian selling human hotdogs smelled like, well hot dogs.

A quarian reeking of disinfectant passed by, followed by a couple of salarians who smelled like they worked in sewage and maintenance. An asari ran a fruit juice stand some distance away that made smoothies out of a native Thessian fruit that smelled like a cross between an orange, a mango, and something else I could not identify.

Every time I visited the Presidium, the Spectre offices, and the Council Tower, I liked to come down to the Wards afterwards to cleanse my palette. I liked to walk around and rid myself of the bad taste that all that sterility and artificialness left in my mouth. This was what was real, this was what I was fighting for.

I eventually found the address on the list and looked up. The apartment was maybe half the size of my own, and less than a fifth as large as the Tiberius Towers. It looked to be in some state of disrepair. A few of the windows were boarded up, and I could see the silhouettes of some of the inhabitants moving about inside.

I opened the doors and walked in. An old salarian security guard was watching a holo-vid on his omni-tool behind a desk in front of the elevators. He didn't spare me a second glance as I walked up and pressed the button, calling for the elevator down to my floor. A panel lit up indicating that the elevator was currently on the top-most floor. Fucking Korlus.

Eventually the elevator reached the lobby. I entered it and slapped the button for the 12th floor. I heard the motors creak and groan as the elevator began to pull itself up. By the sound of it the pulley hadn't been maintained since perhaps before the Reaper War. I made a mental note to send someone to fix it later, on Spectre Authority.

After a long, slow climb I finally reached the 12th floor. I moved down the hall, looking for apartment 1227.

I found it and knocked on the door. After about a minute, a young, slim girl in her early twenties shyly opened the door and peaked her head out. Her eyes were baggy and her skin was palid. She looked like she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in a long while. I would know.

"Nancy? Nancy Peterson?" I asked.

The girl nodded slowly. "Yes, that's me, can I help you?"

I sighed ran a hand through my hair. "Mind if I come in? I was hoping I could talk to you, about your sister, Barbra."


	21. Chapter 21 - Ideological Ramblings

**Chapter 21 – Ideological Ramblings**

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun System – Aboard the Exeter, Officer's Quarters_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Field Commander Thomas Locke – Project Transcendence)_

She was just as beautiful as Locke remembered, looking exactly as she had the hundreds of other times Locke had visited her. Her blonde hair would always be like soft-spun gold, her eyes blue like the sky on a clear, hot, summer afternoon, and she'd always have that same, wry smile on her face every time Locke looked at her. Meanwhile Locke himself had aged and changed and become someone else.

 _I wonder… if she looked at me now, would she recognize me?_

She'd never age and she'd never change, but that was because no matter how hard Locke prayed some nights she was still just a photo. And even if that photo were to age and fade she'd still look the same way in his memories, still frozen in time and as beautiful as the day he had left her. As long as he was around to remember her that is.

The N7 sat with his shoulders hunched protectively over the well-worn picture held almost reverently in his hands. Locke looked down and smiled at her. She was always smiling back. That was perhaps one of the only benefits of having a picture instead of having the actual person with you. Pictures could be used to record only the best memories, the best moments, leaving out all the bad, the yelling, the fighting, and the tears.

But a picture wasn't a real, breathing human being. It would never say 'I Love You' back—would never hold your hand or laugh at your jokes or kiss you goodnight or do any of those things that made love what it was.

And it wouldn't respond when you told it you were sorry, wouldn't tell you that it forgave you for leaving, for putting a job before her when she should have been your world. It wouldn't say that it was okay, that she understood, and that she was willing to give you a second chance.

Locke kissed the photo one last time, pretending as hard as I could that it was really her, even just for a moment, before sliding it back beneath his chestplate, tucked away securely in a secret compartment.

 _One day, soon,_ he promised. _I'll make it all up to you._

The grizzled old soldier sighed and ran his hand over through his dark, greying hair.

The door behind him hissed open and Locke immediately stood up from where he'd been sitting on the bed, the mask he'd adopted and cultivated meticulously over the years on his face in an instant.

"Tom," greeted his oldest friend.

"Marcus," he returned.

Marcus extended a hand and Locke grabbed it, shaking it hard. As per usual, Marcus wore an impenetrable mask on his face as well, making it hard for Locke to determine whether or not Marcus was pleased or pissed off at this particular moment in time.

"What's the word?" Locke asked him.

The mask slipped ever so slightly and the smallest of smiles snuck its way onto Marcus' face. "Success. Zakiah has delivered the core and Tyrannus and his commandos have captured the facility and the satellites. We have control of the whole network of planetary defense cannons and their communications."

Locke nodded morosely but despite the good news he couldn't bring himself to look pleased. A successful first phase of our mission on Anhur meant that there had been complete civilian casualties at the objectives. It had been a necessary loss, one that neither Marcus nor Locke had wanted to incur but one that had to be incurred nonetheless.

Marcus noticed the look on Locke's face and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Tom, I don't like it any more than you do, but you know what we're fighting for. You know what's at stake here. Sacrifices have to be made."

Locke nodded numbly in agreement. "Sacrifices have to be made…" he echoed, but how many? And for how much longer? How far could they go before they did more harm than good? Took more lives than they saved? How many more had to die before they could no longer claim that they had acted in the name of the greater good?

If they were successful on Anhur, then hundreds of thousands more would die before they could proceed with the next phase of their plan. Zakiah had planted the Core on the Harsa's Embrace and sent it on a collision course with Anhur's capital, New Thebes, nearly several hours ago, which meant that soon the entire colony would be overrun with those things and countless of innocents would die.

All in the name of the greater good.

"Sacrifices, Tom," Marcus continued. "You want to see and hold her again, just like I want to see and hold my son. There is no other way."

Marcus gently removed his hand from Locke's shoulder and sighed. The N7 turned to look at his friend. Marcus looked older than ever – grey streaks ran through his hair where none had been a mere few months ago. His eyes had grown haunted, his cheeks gaunt. His skin was pale and he looked to have lost at least ten pounds.

Locke sighed and rubbed my jaw before brushing past him to leave the room.

"For the sake of our souls Marcus, I hope you're right…"

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun System – Aboard the Exeter, Bridge_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Field Commander Thomas Locke – Project Transcendence)_

"All IFF tags accounted for, Admiral. Every last ship in the task force has successfully made it through the relay," reported crewman Khapoor. The communications officer entered it into the ship's log before firing off a copy to the admiral.

"Excellent," Marcus replied. "Have Castor take his battlegroup and blockade the relay, then tell Gladwyn to lend him one of her flotillas as well."

The communication officer's fingers were a blur as they manually inputted Marcus' orders.

"Have the rest of the task force move to rally point alpha," he further ordered.

"Yes, admiral…"

Locke stood in front of the bridge's holo-table in full N7 regalia, tapping his finger absent-mindedly on the casing of his M5 Phalanx as he watched the holograms of dozens of ships – mostly frigates and cruisers, but at least three carriers – move into position around the Exeter.

The unfamiliar silhouettes of numerous salarian prowlers and corvettes, as well as those of an asari light cruiser and several frigates, could also be seen interspersed within the predominantly human task force. It was quite the sight to behold, watching warships from multiple species flying together. The last time he'd seen something even remotely similar to this had been almost twenty-five years ago.

Beside him Marcus studied the layout of Anhur's planetary defense cannons. They were mainly situated over the planet's largest continent, the one that contained all the major cities. Now that they were under their control, Marcus' task group could theoretically hold off a relief fleet nearly five times the size of his task force. If all went well, however, they wouldn't have to fight an all-out space battle.

Hopefully they'd have time to complete this phase before the Council caught on and sent in their own strike group. They wouldn't send a whole fleet, Locke mused. No, that would anger the tenuous peace that they shared with the Terminus Systems. They'd send a small battlegroup at most – maybe a force of Alliance N7's backed by turian Ghosts and salarian STG, or even a couple of stealth frigates under the command of some of their legendary Spectres.

"Never thought I'd see the day when we'd fly side-by-side with the asari and the salarians once again," Marcus mused as he studied the tactical display.

Locke stopped tapping his gun and crossed his arms over his chest. "Misery makes for strange bedfellows," he grunted.

"Missing someone is most definitely not an exclusively human trait…" admitted Marcus. "Nonetheless you'd think that we'd have learned a little bit more about interspecies cooperation after the Reaper War."

The N7 gave a dry laugh. "We could definitely have used a few salarian prowlers at Bahak, or even a couple of extra Jaeger teams. Would have made taking those planetary defense cannons a lot easier."

"Agreed, salarian prowlers for up-to-date satellite imagery. We could have caught that ambush if they'd been there, and if the Jaegers had been given the space-op maybe the 63rd wouldn't have taken nearly 50% casualties taking the space cannons," Marcus pointed out.

"The Jaegers would have done it with less than 10%," Locke agreed. "When it comes to space boarding, your average Jaeger team would probably do as well as any team of N7's I could put together."

"Remind me why we didn't call them in again?"

"Politics," the N7 groaned. "Some desk-jockey with a few extra bars on his lapel coerced another desk-jockey to have the Jaegers help with the slave facilities instead. Waste of time if you ask me, the battalion assigned to that was more than capable of successfully completing the mission by themselves."

"A waste of life…" Marcus agreed.

For all the darkness and pain that the Reaper War had brought to their lives and to the galaxy, those who had fought it and survived had done so in the hopes that the galaxy would learn to help each other and work together.

The turians had played ball, for every colony of theirs they had attempted to rebuild they had helped to rebuild a colony of another species, and for their generosity they had suffered. Locke remembered when the Palaven Rebellions had broken out. He'd begged the Systems Alliance Security Defense Council to send military aid but he'd been denied.

That was not to say that the Systems Alliance hadn't made any strides in interspecies cooperation. The Jaegers were a prime example of that, posted in many systems in Council space to aid with any high-risk recovery missions that might arise in them. It was mainly the asari and the salarians who had withdrawn tightly into their shells following the Reaper War – the asari because that was what asari did, and the salarians because they feared ill-will from other species following the decision of their dalatrass to withhold salarian aid until the very end of the Reaper War.

Hell, even the newly arisen Krogan Federation and the Quarian and Geth Collective had done more to help the galaxy than the asari or the salarians. The quarians and the geth had sent out teams of tech and engineering specialists to many broken colonies to effect repairs, not once using their expertise to leverage exorbitant prices or valuable goods, while the krogan had done their best to protect hapless refugees from slavers. The Alliance officer who'd formed the Jaegers had actually gotten the idea for the Jaegers from a particularly cunning and intelligent krogan warchief.

A set of light footsteps pulled Locke out of his thoughts. Both the N7 and the admiral turned to acknowledge the newcomer as she moved to take her place between them at the holo-table.

She was in her late fifties, her blonde, graying hair was done up in a tight bun and she was wearing a white labcoat. Although the wrinkles around her eyes were starting to become more and more apparent, her eyes themselves were as bright and intelligent as ever. She nodded to both of them and smiled at them. Locke and Marcus simultaneously greeted the woman by her codename, as was the protocol.

To their surprise, the woman waved her hand and rolled her eyes. "Please, I think the time for secrecy disintegrated the moment Marcus ran off with the whole fleet," she laughed. Around the bridge Locke could see the crew stealing quick, covert glances at the legendary 'Mordred' — the woman who had promised to reunite them with their loved ones.

Marcus shrugged and turned his attention back to the holo-table. "Suit yourself Alice, but it was your security protocols that allowed us to operate undetected for so long. It'd be a shame to grow overconfident just as we're about to finally move in to the next stages of our plans, especially with the Council now possibly on our tail."

Alice sighed and placed her palms on the edge of the holo-table with a grimace.

"I know, but I'm tired, Marcus. I just don't want to have to hide what we're trying to do any longer. Maybe if we had simply told them what we intended to do then we wouldn't have had to resort to such extreme measures," Alice lamented. "Maybe the people would have supported us."

 _It was a different time, a different place,_ Locke thought.

Locke rubbed his jaw with an armored gauntlet and shook his head. "They would never have understood, how could they?" Maybe some would indeed have supported her, but Locke knew that the vast majority of the Systems Alliance would never have condoned the steps that they would have had to take to accomplish their goal.

Marcus nodded in agreement. "They wouldn't understand. But you're not completely wrong about the need for secrecy being somewhat past. If the Council didn't know we existed then, they most certainly do now, especially if those Spectres survived the Hippocrates."

"Nonetheless," his friend continued, "if you'd like we'll stop referring to you by your codename as long as were in a relatively secure location. However, I think Locke and I would both sleep better if our operatives stuck to your protocols, at least as long as they're out in the field."

"We need you, you're the one thing we can't risk," Locke told her. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.

The doctor's hands tightened into fists as she drove them deeper into the holo-table. "I'm sick and tired of all this secrecy, like what we want makes us _evil._ I'm sick and tired of hiding what we're trying to do, is what we're trying to accomplish truly something so terribly, horribly wrong?"

It wasn't, or at least so Locke thought, but that was never the issue. The issue had always been the price. What had happened aboard the Hippocrates had shaken all of them to their cores, and yet it would pale to what they we're about to do now to the people of Anhur.

Alice dug her fingers into her palms. "What we've done, the damage and pain we've caused, I _know_ that all of it is on some level unforgiveable, believe me, but all of it is a price I'd pay without hesitation if I were given the choice all over again. I guess I just need something as simple as having my name being used to remind me that at heart I'm still human even after all these terrible choices…"

The three of them had been there since the beginning, when Alice had first come to him and Marcus with her findings and her plan more than two decades ago. Since then they'd all been forced to do some truly, truly terrible things, things that like Alice sayd they'd never really be forgiven for. Things that they wouldn't hesitate to do a thousand times again if it meant one more chance with the people they loved.

"The Embrace should be making landfall in a few minutes, and Severus reported that they managed to take the cannons and the satellites with zero casualties," Marcus told her in an attempt to cheer Alice up.

"Yes," Locke added, "Hopefully after Anhur, no one else needs to die."

Alice wiped away the few tears that had started to form beneath her eyelids. She put on a shaky smile and nodded at her two friends.

"I'm glad to know Severus and his team are safe, and I hope you're right, Tom. Now if you'll excuse me, there are some preparations I have to attend to before we make planetfall."

With that the scientist turned and left the bridge. Marcus and Locke shared a glance with each other before returning their attention to the holo-table.

"Admiral, all ships have made it to the Rally point, we're ready to initiate phase two," reported crewman Khapoor.

"Excellent," Marcus replied. "Flight Lieutenant Mulligan, take us in. Crewman Khapoor, signal the task force to commence phase two."

"Aye aye, sir," the two bridge officers chorused.

The rest of the officers on the bridge held their breath as the ships slipped one by one into the web of planetary defense cannons. If Severus' 'all-clear' had been falsified or someone managed to turn them on at the last minute, the entire task force might very well be ripped apart in minutes.

Locke sensed that Marcus had been more unnerved by Alice's words than he'd let on. His friend shifted uneasily in place and cleared his throat. "Tom, what Alice said about maintaining our humanity, do you really think it's even possible?"

It was something Locke asked himself every day. He understood the moral conflict within both Alice and Marcus because it was something that he struggled with as well. Back in the early years when project transcendence had been nothing more than talk and theories none of them had any compunction about the things that they were doing, but they'd done some truly horrible things in the last few weeks and they intended to do even more terrible things in the days to come. Did it all irrevocably change who they were?

And even if they were to change for the worse, was there anything they could even do to restore their souls. Was forgiveness attainable or was restoring their humanity a pipe dream—something they'd attempt and seek in order to try and sooth their conscience with but in the end pointless and irrelevant.

Locke stood in silence as he pondered his friend's question. Since when did Marcus ever display even the slightest hint of self-doubt? Sure, he probably had some thoughts from time-to-time, but for as long as Locke had known him the naval officer had never had anything other than ice water running through his veins. In front of others and in front of his men, Marcus was never anything but sure.

"I don't know Marcus," he finally replied. "Maybe the fact that we're doing this for a 'good' reason might just be enough to keep our humanity intact, or maybe we're just kidding ourselves and what we've done has permanently damned our souls beyond measure."

Marcus grinned at his friend, something he seldom did. "Damn, look how maudlin we've become in our old age."

Locke chuckled and shoved the smaller man. "I never heard you once question our humanity when we were mowing down Reaper troops, eliminating terrorist cells, or assassinating corrupt officials"

"What's this 'we' business? You were the N7, I was just a naval officer stuck in a chair."

The N7 grinned back at his friend. No, he didn't know whether or not he was still human after doing the things he did. He didn't know if there was anything that he could do that would ever make up for the crimes he'd committed. He had no idea if the price of bringing her back would be exacting beyond measure on his soul and on his humanity.

But as his fingers brushed lightly against his chestplate, where the picture was kept right over his heart, Locke knew that it was a price he'd happily pay.

* * *

 _March 7_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Anhur – Planetary Defense Cannon Main Generator_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Field Commander Severus Tyrannus – Project Transcendence)_

The air inside the facility reeked with the scent of ruptured bowels, blood, urine, and burning flesh.

Severus tilted his head up into the air as a pained and terrified scream echoed through the emptying corridors. Biting back a snarl he strode out of the operations center, followed closely by his lieutenant and his de-facto second-in-command, Darken Krystos.

"We shouldn't have brought him," Severus said quietly. Although his tone was flaccid the menacing flanging beneath it did not go unnoticed by his subordinate.

"We had no idea what kind of resistance we'd be encountering," Darken rasped. In contrast to Severus' pale-white carapace, light-blue clan markings and blood-red eyes, Darken had dark-brown plates and bone-white markings, with light-green eyes. He was also a good half-a-foot taller and much bulkier than the slimmer, younger turian.

"Better to have him and not need him than to need him and not have him," he finished.

Severus scoffed. "Technicians and maintenance workers, security guards too fat for their uniforms and a few cooks. Hardly worthy opponents."

Darken didn't reply, he merely kept a regulation three paces behind his superior, his Phaeston held tightly in a ready position across his chest.

The screaming eventually died. Both the turian saboteurs rounded the corner to see another massive turian clad in similar, angular, matte-black armor standing over the smoldering corpse of what had been a batarian technician. His omni-tool was activated and he had an M-300 Claymore in the other hand.

Despite being half a foot shorter and possibly fifty pounds lighter, the younger turian grabbed the offending saboteur and slammed him into the wall, eliciting a snarl from the larger turian.

Severus violently pulled Brutus' face down so that his own face was within inches of the bigger turians. Behind Severus, Darken stood and watched impassively as his friend and commanding officer dressed down the much more physically imposing turian as if he was nothing more than a child.

"No fire, no heavy weapons, nothing but knives and un-modded ammunition. Clean kills," Severus menacingly reprimanded the renegade turian.

The larger turian stared petulantly into the blood-red eyes of the smaller saboteur. "My Claymore was out of ammunition and the batarian was carrying a Carnifex," he snarled.

Both Darken and Severus eyed the smoldering corpse before them. An old, Y-series Carnifex was indeed holstered at the waist of the deceased tech. Both turians also couldn't help but note that the batarian had fallen onto his front, indicating that he had been running away from something, not towards.

"The heatsink on that relic would have overheated long before it penetrated your kinetic barriers," Severus snarled back. His normally implacable demeanor had been tested by the one-sidedness of their assault upon the facility and finally been breached by the knowledge that his subordinate had violated the rules of engagement on a fleeing technician.

Brutus Mara'kin didn't deign to reply in the face of the smaller turians ire. There was a reason that they all followed Severus, and not simply because of the dynasty from which he hailed from. He had seen first-hand many times what Severus could do.

Instead, Brutus decided to do the smart thing and kept his mouth shut and his mandibles tight to his jaws. That way he had the best chance of leaving this facility alive so that he could fight once more.

As quickly as it had come, the anger left Severus' eyes and the unblinking, hardened mask came crashing back down. He released his hold on the larger turian and shoved him away, disgust evident in his expression and in the look he gave the murderous turian.

"Take your team to the main generator, you'll be staying behind with the reinforcements from orbit, in case they try to retake this facility," Severus ordered him.

Brutus scowled and glared petulantly at both his commanding officer and his second-in-command. Severus' angry stare had faded away to be replaced with his usual glassy-eyed, disinterested look, but it didn't mean that Brutus was off the hook. The younger turian commando was notoriously hard to read, even for a turian. Just because he didn't look angry didn't mean that Severus wasn't mere milliseconds away from ending Brutus' life.

But luckily for Brutus, killing in cold blood wasn't Severus' style. Brutus himself would have ripped out the throat of anyone who dared challenge him with a swipe of his talons without a second thought, even if the individual were to be on his knees, begging for his life.

Darken Krystos on the other hand, now that was a turian who knew the joys of unrestrained violence. Although Darken was as equally stony and impassive as Severus was and beholden to the same misconstrued notion of turian nobility and honor, Brutus had nonetheless seen the hulking turian gun down dozens of unarmed terrorists, rip out the throats of surrendering slavers, and execute frightened gang members. His honor and nobility did not extend to those he considered scum. Only his loyalty to Severus and the younger turian's antiquated notions of honor prevented Krystos from becoming the angel of death that he had the potential to be. Brutus would have happily served under an unrestrained Krystos.

"Take your team to the generator," repeated Severus.

Brutus blinked to clear his mind, then clipped his Claymore to his back and saluted. "Yes sir."

He spun on his heels and proceeded down the hall, one talon on his comms and relaying the young turian's orders to the rest of his team. Although Brutus would have preferred to accompany the rest of the commandos to New Thebes, he knew that when the Council inevitably sent a force to retake Anhur, they'd have to first regain control of the cannons and they'd send their best to do so. Brutus would have the fight he craved.

Severus watched his subordinate walk away with a heavy sigh.

"Are you sure it will be wise to leave Brutus' team here at the facility?" Darken rasped to his commanding officer. "His commandos are among our fiercest fighters…"

"Fiercest… and most bloodthirsty, more varren than turian," Severus replied. "They have grown too wild ever since we've initiated this campaign. I do not know how much longer I can restrain them."

The larger turian cocked his head in confusion. Not many had the courage to question Severus Tyrannus, but the two had known each other for a long time. "But to leave them here? A waste of fighting ability that we may yet need."

Severus looked at the only turian he'd ever considered to be his friend and smiled. "No, not a waste at all."

The red-eyed turian's gaze went unfocused as he sifted through his own memories. "You know me, Darken. I have never been bested in combat, broke hundreds of training records and defeated every single one of my peers and every single one of my drill sergeants before I was even sixteen. I was to be one of, if not the, youngest Blackwatch recruit in the history of the Hierarchy. That is not pride, it is fact."

Darken nodded. Severus had been a prodigy the likes of which no turian had ever seen. Unfortunately, nothing he did, not the records he broke nor the missions he completed had ever fully sated his desire to prove himself. That desire to develop his true potential had been what had driven the young turian to abandon his rising star in the Hierarchy for a career as a private contractor.

Severus pulled his mandibles tight to his jaw and continued quietly. "Aboard the Hippocrates there were these two Spectres. One, a turian, fought with a natural talent that almost rivaled my own. You know him perhaps, he is the legendary Cade Kitiarian."

Darken nodded again. Everyone knew about the Hero of Palaven. Slightly older than Severus and also the youngest son from a prestigious dynasty back on Palaven, Cade was universally hailed as a hero throughout turian space for his actions in saving the Primarch of Palaven during the Rebellions.

"I bested Cade," Severus continued. "He was the best that I'd ever fought, and on any other day he might have bested me. After our fight I remember how happy I was, thinking to myself that I'd finally found someone worthy of fighting."

It was to the bigger turian's surprise when Severus suddenly let out a tiny laugh. Severus Tyrannus was known for many things but laughter, humor and good nature were definitely not any of them.

"But the second Spectre, Darken! He was every bit as equally cunning and as talented as Cade was, and a biotic no less. He was neither the fastest, strongest, nor the most biotically-talented individual I'd ever fought, with no formal martial arts training, but inside he had this fire, this anger, so imagine my surprise when mere hours after I'd finally found someone equal to me, I found someone even better."

Severus turned to his second-in-command. "And his eyes, they were like glowing chips of ice, so full of pain and anger and hate. A truly worthy opponent, perhaps the most dangerous opponent I'd ever fought."

The younger turian smiled. "So no, it will not be a waste at all to have Brutus and his team remain here, for when the Council inevitably discovers our presence here they will undoubtedly send him to retake the cannons."

Finally Darken understood. Either Brutus would kill or wound the Spectre or the Spectre would kill Brutus. Either way, a threat was handled.

Severus looked once more at the corpse of the batarian technician. Mordred's orders had left no room for interpretation – everyone inside the facility had to die, they couldn't risk the planetary defense cannons being reactivated.

But killing did not mean butchering. Severus took no pleasure in ending the lives of those he considered weaker than him. No, it was a waste. Better to spare them and give them a chance to grow into a worthy opponent.

The two turians eventually met up with the rest of their commandos and proceeded out to the landing pad where a pair of shuttles were currently touching down. Out of them streamed nearly a whole platoon of fellow soldiers. Most of them were humans who were wearing Systems Alliance armor that had been painted black, but there were also several salarian engineers and even a trio of asari commandos.

One of the human marines with a pair of blacked-out lieutenant's bars made his way over to Severus and saluted smartly.

"Field Commander Tyrannus, Lieutenant Hershal reporting for duty," the defector reported.

Severus nodded and jabbed a talon over his shoulder. "Report to Team Commander Brutus Marak'in. You should find him in the main generator room."

"Sir," Hershal replied. With a brief nod he began to direct his men into the facility.

Darken and Severus watched quietly as their fellow defectors departed. Their fellow commandos were arrayed in a staggered semi-circle behind them, weapons across their chests and their tinted visors gazing steadily at the backs of the departing platoon.

"You'd think they'd have sent more men," Darken said quietly.

Severus shook his head. "No, our actions on Anhur may be bold but secrecy is still a top priority. We need to minimize our presence. Once Admiral Octavian's task force finishes deploying their cargo they too will slip away. Hopefully the Council won't even know that they were here."

Darken chuckled. "And you truly believe that they won't find out?"

The pale turian smiled lightly. "No, but even if Octavian's task force is discovered, they nonetheless will still be long gone. Either way, there is no need to flood the planet with our troops, especially once those creatures are unleashed once more."

He gestured for his commandos to start loading onto the shuttles. Just in case, Severus decided to take a different shuttle than Darken. It wouldn't do for both of them to perish in some freak accident.

"I'll see you back on the Exeter," Darken waved in farewell. Severus nodded in return.

The doors to the shuttle slid shut with a hiss and Severus moved to take a seat beside one of the other commandos on his team. He strapped in just as the shuttle's miniature drive core kicked in and they were propelled towards the atmosphere.

"Sir?" asked one of the commandos, Quintus Gallian. "Was it really necessary to kill all those people?"

Severus sighed and closed his eyes. He was only twenty-three years old and yet Quintus, a veteran nearly forty years old, still talked to him like Severus was his sergeant. Sometimes he questioned whether or not he deserved such loyalty and faith from turians nearly twice his age and with more fighting experience than he'd been alive.

"Quintus, my friend, Mordred has been nothing but transparent about what we fight for," he began.

"Were it for a lesser, more selfish goal, you know that I would have killed her myself." Severus continued. "We left the legions to become something more, to do something great with our lives that the rigidity of the Hierarchy would never have allowed."

He looked at each of his commandos in turn – turians who he had known and fought alongside for years, turians who had overlooked his youth when he had first joined them in light of his raw talent and had treated him with the same respect that they'd treat their own generals, captains, and fathers.

When he'd abandoned the legions, he'd done so in the hopes of finding something truly worth fighting for, something worth dedicating his talents to. It had been a decision his own highly traditional father had neither understood nor forgave him for. Severus had simply grown sick and tired of fighting for the glory of some outdated, archaic government body, he wanted to fight for something more.

These turians had shared his vision, they had placed their faith in him and so far all he had to show for it was a thousand souls physically twisted beyond all recognition aboard a Systems Alliance ship and a planet full of innocents about to be subject to the same fate. It all left a bad taste in his mouth and an aching in his chest.

He pondered his words for a second before resuming his speech. "I know that I myself will never truly be rid of the shame that some of my recent actions have brought me and believe me, I regret asking each of you to share in that burden…"

Each turian nodded at him in turn. Those at the facility, they had been technicians and janitors, cooks and maintenance. None of them had been true warriors. None of them had deserved to die.

And yet Severus and his commandos had still cut them down. It would be a mark of shame that they'd be forced to carry for the rest of their lives, no matter the intention behind their actions.

"…But think of the lives that we will have saved. I know that it might be hard to see the light right now, brothers, especially with the blood of so many innocents on our hands, but I believe that the sacrifices we make and the sacrifices we demand will indeed justify the end."

"Die for the cause," he finished.

"Die for the cause," echoed the turian commandos around him.

* * *

 _March 9_ _th_ _, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, – Aboard the Exeter, Officer's Quarters_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Field Commander Severus Tyrannus – Project Transcendence)_

Severus double-checked the firing mechanism of his M-11 Suppressor once more before re-assembling the weapon and holstering it on his thigh. His M-97 Viper already sat on his back, having already been cleaned and inspected three times over the last hour.

Had his father been here, Severus would have been forced to not only clean and maintain his weapons, but also to inspect each and every single one of his arc grenades, perform maintenance on his armor, and ensure that his room was immaculately stowed away.

But luckily for the red-eyed turian, his father wasn't here. His father had declared him dead for being a terrible turian and now he could simply clean his guns in peace, put off armor maintenance for another few days, and check his arc grenades at his own leisure rather than every six hours. His bed would remain undone and his clothes and the components of his gear cleaning kit could remain strewn across the room.

A knock sounded outside of his door. Severus toggled on his omni-tool and checked the security feed. It was Locke.

"Come in," the turian called out.

The door slid open and in walked the human N7. He was already wearing his armor, the red stripe of paint on his right arm pitted and scarred and fading in some places. His cold, blue eyes were glassy and a bit forlorn, giving the old soldier the appearance of being always on the verge of tears, or at least so Severus thought.

"We got them," Locke told him. "One of Castor's frigates finally got off a lucky shot when they were about two parsecs from the relay."

Severus stood up and grabbed his armored cuirass from the foot of his bed, clipping it onto his undersuit and tightening the clamps.

"Did they manage to send off a comm. buoy?" the turian asked.

Locke sighed and nodded wearily. "Our sensors didn't pick one up, but knowing the STG they probably had the tech to cloak it. Either way, Alice is moving along with the assumption that they got one out and that the Council will find soon find out that we're here."

It was sometimes hard decipher what Locke was thinking, even for a human. He could be remarkably stone-faced, as stoic as any turian, but these last few weeks had added years to the N7's face. The crimes that they had committed had battered down his carefully-maintained walls to the point where Severus could now see the weariness just leaking out of the man.

"Is it Alice now? What happened to 'Mordred'?" he asked quietly. Severus proceeded to put on his armor legplates as Locke crossed his arms and leaned casually against the door jamb.

"Alice has been having an existential crisis of faith. Regardless, 'Mordred' wants you and your commandos down on the ground within the hour. You'll be supervising overall field operations while we search for one of their scientists. You'll also be protecting her, she insists on going down there herself."

The plates above Severus' eyes rose in surprise. "She's on the ground?"

"Yeah," nodded Locke. "Equal parts scientific expertise and equal parts easing of conscience. Zakiah's also going with her."

Severus hated the insane salarian. He constantly prattled on about transcendence as if it was some sort of religious rapture, talking about 'eternal life' and 'deliverance' and 'the lies of the bastard Shepard'.

He had acquired a few new scars aboard the Hippocrates, courtesy of the cold-eyed Spectre, and now required a constant supply of painkillers in order to function properly. Unfortunately that hadn't taught the crazed former STG captain the value of shutting the hell up. There were days when Severus sorely regretted saving the bloodthirsty, crazed salarian. He'd not been good to work with.

Of course, Olivia had been worse than Zakiah – had been much more impulsive, sadistic, and psychotic than the demented salarian. She however had disobeyed directives, disappeared aboard the Hippocrates and was most likely dead. Severus was willing to bet his prized M-97 Viper that it had been the cold-eyed Spectre who'd finally shut her up.

"The salarian is a liability," Severus said flatly. "His presence will be a detriment, just like Olivia's was."

Locke sighed and nodded his head in agreement. "That may be, but you don't take your eyes off a rabid dog, Sev. He may be crazy but he has absolutely everything to lose if he screws this up for us. Plus, you and your commandos are the only ones I trust to keep him in check."

The turian looked at him with a flat stare, then sat down on the bed, dipped his head and sighed as well.

"I hate what we've been reduced to, Locke. In bed with the devil, as you humans say."

The N7 crossed the room and sat down beside the despondent young turian. He gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I know, and I'm sorry Sev. And it's not just you, Marcus and Alice have felt the same way ever since the Hippocrates, all I know is that we're in too deep to turn back now."

Locke set his lips in a grim line and continued on. "I need you, Sev. Everyone here needs you. Without you and your commandos we don't have any hope of succeeding. I know it's a lot to ask and unfair to do so, but I'm sorry, there's no other choice."

The red-eyed turian sat silently. The last few months had weighed heavily on his soul. Most of the individuals in project transcendence were like Locke – individuals who'd lost loved ones during the Reaper War. They were driven by what Severus considered to be noble reasons. They were rational and conscientious and understood that the things that they had to do to accomplish their goals would be considered criminal at best, horrific at worst.

Others were like Zakiah or Olivia, driven by demons such as greed, sadism, and a love of pain. Back on the Hippocrates it had taken all of Severus' self-restraint not to cut down both of the other two lead saboteurs for killing defenseless, unchanged crewmen, and he kicked himself at least once a day for saving Zakiah's life from the cold-eyed Spectre. If only they didn't need the assistance or the expertise of such twisted monsters.

Severus decided then and there that the moment Zakiah ceased to be useful or jeopardized the mission or their morals with his sick tendencies once more, Severus himself would kill the former STG captain with his bare hands. That would be an act that he himself would consider with absolute certainty to be an act of good.

"My commandos will do their job, Locke. We'll keep Mordred safe as the next phase of the project occurs and we'll keep an eye on Zakiah," Severus finally conceded.

Locke smiled. "Thanks Sev. Your commandos are already in the hangar bay, waiting on you."

His job done, he stood up and made his way towards the exit. Severus tracked the departing N7 with blood-red eyes and an unreadable expression on his face.

"And Locke?" he rasped.

The N7 turned around. "Yes?"

"You're a good man, don't lose that trying to bring her back," Severus whispered.

He could see the look of pain that flashed ever so briefly over his fellow saboteur's eyes. Severus hadn't intended to cause him distress – he liked Locke, considered him not only a damn good soldier but an honorable individual with a good heart, one who was fighting for a noble goal. He'd only meant to remind him that Severus would not consider it a favorable trade if Locke lost all these traits in the pursuit of his ghost.

The rogue N7 nodded before turning again and exiting the room, leaving the pale, red-eyed turian to sit in silence for a few more moments before he had to dirty his hands once more.


	22. Chapter 22 - Some Lengthy World-Building

**Chapter 22 – Some Lengthy World-Building**

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium, The Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance— Training Facility 2_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

I grunted as I brought my chin above the bar for the eighth and final time, eighty-five pounds clipped on to my weighted vest to simulate not only a full load of my armor, weapons and gear, but an additional sixty pounds of equipment that I might find myself carrying from time to time.

Letting go, I dropped off of the bar, careful to absorb the force behind my landing with bent knees to protect my joints, then hastily undid the clasp on my weighted vest and let it fall heavily onto the floor. Thirty second rest.

Next was the automatic treadmill some distance away, I hopped on and immediately began sprinting as fast as I could, doing my best to maintain a speed in excess of fifteen-point-five miles per hour for thirty seconds, down from the sixteen that I had been doing earlier. This was my sixth set.

I hopped off the treadmill, panting hard, sweat glistening on my brow and my upper arms. Thirty second rest.

My eyes stung from some sweat that had gotten in them but it didn't deter me from moving to the heavy bag and sliding on the pair of gloves I'd left beside it. I set a three minute timer and went to work. Jab, jab, cross. Jab, cross, hook, knee. Jab, jab, cross, elbow, again and again and again for three minutes. Some combinations I hit as hard as I could, other times I focused on speed and precision.

I was the only Spectre in this particular training facility right now. Cade was doing currently doing some hologram fighting alongside Percival in a nearby simulation room. I had opted for raw physical work. I hadn't had the chance to do much of it while on board the SSV Excalibur over the last few months and I had had enough of fighting while onboard the SSV Hippocrates.

This time I took a minute-long rest, then went back to my weight vest and struggled into it, restarting the cycle.

Unlike many alliance marines, I didn't have the same gene mods that the Systems Alliance gave every recruit upon enlisting. They weren't magic, the same marine with the gene mods might be maybe ten, fifteen percent stronger or faster than the same one who didn't have them but they did make it easier to retain strength and muscle mass, especially during long deployments where a marine might not have access to the best facilities.

It also allowed them to focus more on combat drills and shooting. It also made them a bit bigger, bulkier. Percival was a prime example, the man was damn near built like a bodybuilder, two-hundred and twenty pounds of muscle at a height of 6'5.

I had declined the gene mods back when I first joined the Spectres. I had been afraid of how they'd interact with my biotic capabilities and thus had instead opted to just attain and maintain my physique and my fitness naturally. I was about one hundred and ninety pounds and 6'2, nowhere near as large as my fellow Spectre and a little bit closer to normal proportions.

Three more rounds went by. I added tire flips to them as well after the bag work to put a little bit more time between my pull-ups and my sprints. Like any good Spectre, I preferred to focus on increasing my high-intensity, long-duration work capacity rather than size.

I'd probably move on to some shooting practice immediately after, it was always nice to practice being accurate when you were at your most tired. After strenuous training for the last fifty minutes or so I was fast approaching my limit. Weighted pull-ups, thirty second rest, thirty second sprint, thirty second rest, three minute bag, thirty second rest, tire flips, thirty second rest, repeat.

I made a point to cap it out at twelve total sets so that I wasn't completely floored. It had been a while since I had access to all these amenities and therefore had practiced this level of training intensity, so I wanted to ease into it. The SSV Excalibur had a decent set-up, but it didn't have nearly as much room and equipment as the facilities at the Spectre offices.

My arms burned and my legs felt as if they'd been savaged by a pack of wild varren but I sighed in disappointment rather than relief after the conclusion of my twelfth and final set. On that last one I had barely maintained a sprint speed of fifteen miles an hour. A part of me wished that I had included some weighted sled pulls, just in case I had to drag Cade's fat ass out of the line of fire on our next mission.

The doors to the room slid open behind me and I turned to regard the newcomers.

"Spirits, can you put on a shirt?" Cade sighed. He covered his eyes dramatically and looked away. Unlike me, he was dressed in a turian training uniform. There wasn't an ounce of sweat visible on his uniform, as turians tended to vent heat through their mouths instead of sweating like many mammals did.

Percival on the other hand was drenched. The big marine was fit – fitter than many of the marines we worked with – but all that muscle size came with a price. He'd still crush eighty, eight-five percent of all enlisted marines in a ten-kilometer run, but he'd never beat Cade and I. What he lacked ever so slightly in cardiovascular fitness compared to us he made up for it in strength.

We had all arrived at the offices at the same time and they had spent the last hour or so working with the combat holograms.

"You boys ready to shoot?" I asked, sipping lightly on my water bottle. I quickly toweled off and slid a plain, dark-blue shirt with the Spectre coat of arms over my torso. Cade and I were both equally tied when it came to shooting, although he excelled a bit more at long distances and I excelled at shorter ones. Percival was just plain N7 material, coming just slightly beneath us in terms of both long and short distances.

I took one more sip from my bottle and tossed it at Percival. He caught it with one hand and took a grateful sip.

"Shooting will have to wait," he said. "The Council just pinged us, they want to meet."

My eyebrow shot up. "Now? All three of us?"

"Yeah," nodded the big marine. "No time to change, we go as is. I think we all know what this is going to be about."

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Citadel Tower – Main Elevator_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

"You two smell like shit, especially Percival," Cade groaned.

Percival elbowed Cade hard, knocking the smaller Spectre into the side of the elevator. Cade splayed his mandibles and kicked Percival in the back of the knee, eliciting a grunt of pain but otherwise only merely serving to piss off the big man.

I pressed my back against one side of the elevator and did my best not to get pulled in to their little friendly tussle.

The elevator ride up the Citadel Tower took exactly three minutes and forty-three seconds. It had been the butt of many jokes over the years and the catalyst for the some of the most surreal conversations that the three of us had ever engaged in. Stuff like whether or not a dog from Terra Nova would understand the barking of a dog that had been raised on Thessia.

I suspected that the lengthiness of the elevator ride was a design of deliberate intent, serving as some sort of psychological mind game on anyone who wanted to meet with the Council. The long elevator ride served to cultivate and amplify any anxiety, nervousness, or trepidation that may be present in an audience-seeker, putting the individual in a vulnerable state and giving the Council the advantage in their negotiations and in their deliberations.

Percival had a beefy arm wrapped around Cade's neck while the turian was currently trying his best to pry himself from the powerful headlock. The turian Spectre was careful to keep his claws from breaking skin, even though it would have been all too easy for Cade to tear open Percival's guts from his position. On the flip side, Percival was careful not to apply too much pressure, lest he risk accidentally breaking Cade's neck.

It had happened before. Not to Cade I mean. Percival had broken the necks of almost every intelligent alien species with his headlocks before. Nine out of eleven I believe, only missing out on Elcor and Hanar because the latter had no necks and because the former were very, very, very rarely the bad guys in our missions.

I gave a sigh of relief as three minutes and forty three seconds finally rolled around and the doors slid open.

Cade and Percival disentangled themselves promptly and dusted each other off. Together they marched out shoulder-to-shoulder, much to the confusion of several Council chamber workers and dignitaries who were lounging around the atrium.

I followed a few steps behind. Off to the side I could see the quarian ambassador alongside the geth ambassador speaking with a delegation from the Asari Republics. She noticed me stepping out of the elevator and gave me a quick nod, her glowing silver eyes narrowing in a smile beneath her mask. I'd personally saved Ambassador Tali'zorah vas Rannoch's life three years ago during a hostage crisis. I'd gotten a Christmas card every year from her ever since.

I didn't stop to say hi, merely nodding in a wordless acknowledgement and continuing on my way. Although we were all dressed in exercise attire, all three of us had the Spectre Emblem emblazoned somewhere on our clothing. The sight of it parted the crowd of dignitaries, officials, and workers like a hot knife through butter, allowing us to quick and unfettered access to the Council's private meeting room.

We moved past a checkpoint manned by a full platoon of heavily-armed C-sec guards. One by one we stepped past a scanner that triple-checked our identities, verifying our ID implants that we each had embedded beneath the skin of our arms against the Spectre database as well as undergoing a retina scan, voice scan, and a fingerprint scan.

Finally, we cleared security and approached the doors to the private meeting room. Flanking the doors were two of our fellow Spectres acting as the final layer of security. We were a tight-knit group, so even if you were to somehow fool the ID implants and all the scans, unless you skinned our faces, wore 'em, and knew our mannerisms and patterns of speech, you probably wouldn't get past the Spectres.

"Operative Kitiarian, Percival, Cloud, been a while, good to see you!" greeted Spectre Operative Lanto. The green-skinned salarian smiled and moved up to exchange handshakes with us while his colleague, Spectre Operative Corribus, scanned us one more time and relayed our arrival to Spectre HQ

"Lan, how long have you been stuck on door-duty?" Cade grinned. My friend pulled the smaller salarian into a hug that completely engulfed his fellow Spectre.

"Almost three weeks now! Unprecedented, meeting traffic spiking, currently drawing some unsettling inferences," sniffed Lanto.

"Heard you boys got into a bit of trouble a few weeks back. Wouldn't have anything to do with a certain Alliance ship, would it?" asked Corribus. Satisfied that we were indeed who we were, Corribus stowed his omni-tool and moved up to greet us as well. The dark-plated turian grabbed our wrists briefly and nodded to each of us in turn.

"How much have you heard?" asked Percival.

Corribus' mandibles twitched and he turned to the former Spectre. "Not much, overheard Leliana complaining that a few of her informants haven't checked in in a while, and Lanto here says comm. traffic regarding the Hippocrates just suddenly winked out."

Percival and I exchanged dark looks while Cade's smile melted from his face. Our fellow Spectres were no slouches in the detective department, they caught on and moved closer.

"What can you tell us?" asked Lanto. The salarian had been a Spectre for well over fifteen years. He was one of the Council's best and most trusted, cutting his teeth mostly doing espionage work in the Terminus Systems on the Council's behalf.

For Lanto to be posted to door duty meant that the Council was nervous. The fact that Lanto was not privy to what happened aboard the ship meant that the Council wasn't just nervous, but downright terrified. The more terrified they were, the more tight-lipped they tended to become regarding distribution information – even among their most elite operatives. It was all sorts of frustrating to those who they had entrusted the safety of the galaxy to.

"Omega-level threat," whispered Percival.

Lanto's beady black eyes went wide and Corribus' mandibles splayed out in alarm. Omega-level threats were threats towards the entire known galaxy. And I mean the entire galaxy. Even an all-out invasion of Council Space by a combined Terminus Systems wouldn't even rate an Omega-level threat.

The only time an omega-level threat had ever been called was during the Reaper Invasion.

Lanto swallowed and rubbed his hands together nervously. "Has that been confirmed yet, Percival?"

Percival shook his head. "Not yet, Lan, at least not by the Council, but the things we saw aboard the Hippocrates... it's an Omega-level threat, and we need to be ready for it."

"So what did happen to the ship?" asked Corribus.

"Destroyed," Cade replied. "We haven't been green-lit by the Council to disclose any facts yet, even to you guys. Spirits, we haven't even filed an official report back at HQ, but we're telling you, it's bad. The fact that they haven't told you guys anything about what happened on the ship proves that they're scared."

Lanto and Corribus both looked at each other. "The loss of the Hippocrates would explain the comm. silence," Lanto mused.

Corribus turned to me and crossed his arms. "Cloud, is there anything you can tell us, Spectre-to-Spectre?"

I looked at the dark-plated turians' brown eyes and pursed my lip. On one hand I understood the Council's need for secrecy. Every survivor knew roughly the events aboard the ship, but few knew of the hidden threat posed by the Reaper Cores. If that information were to get out then we could have mass riots erupting on dozens of different worlds. Galactic stability would utterly cease to exist as people began to point fingers and panic.

On the other hand, these were my fellow Spectres. The well-publicized actions of a select few legendary Spectres such as Saren Arterius, Tela Vasir, and even Commander Shepard had somehow painted all of us as these lone-wolf, independent pariahs who willingly walked our own paths when the reality was we depended on our tight-knit network of fellow Spectre Operatives to feed each other intelligence, help each other out during missions, and to lend us resources.

I calmly linked my omni-tool with Corribus' and Lanto's omni-tools through a highly-encrypted audio-link. Once I was inside that room, they'd hear everything that would be said. From that point on I'd have to trust my fellow Spectres. Percival and Cade pretended to look away, but I knew that my two friends agreed with my arguably treasonous decision. They knew that the Council was wrong on this one, it was just that neither of them wanted to be the one to go against them. Luckily for them, I had no such issues.

I made my choice, the Council could stand on their fancy pedestals and look down their long noses at me and swear me to secrecy on pain of death and I'd just keep doing _exactly_ what they picked me to do, and that is to operate outside known military and legal jurisdictions to halt galactic threats. And hell, sometimes it included theirs, but that's why they picked me, right?

Both Lanto and Cor looked at me and nodded. "Thank you, Cloud. I know you boys wouldn't call an Omega-level threat unless you were absolutely sure, and if it's an Omega-level threat then we need to be ready, all of us, now," said Lanto.

Cor dipped his head in agreement. "I'm not going to sit here and wait for the Council to throw me crumbs. We owe you one. Anything you need, you just say the word," the turian Spectre promised.

I nodded back and our two fellow Spectres moved aside to make way. With a few final farewells we stepped inside to meet with arguably the four most politically influential and powerful individuals in all of Council space.

The room was medium-sized and comprised of two tiers, on the upper tier were four pedestals in front of a large holo-screen hanging from the ceiling where the four councilors stood. On the lower tier was a holo-table designed to display projections. Percival, Cade and I were currently standing on the lower tier.

At the forefront stood the infamous councilor Quinaya Tevos. Tevos had been the asari councilor for nearly one hundred and fifteen years now, having sat in office during not only the Reaper War but also the tumultuous decades that followed. Renowned for her diplomacy and mediation skills, Tevos had thankfully tempered her pro-asari leanings in the years after the war, even if she was still a bit of a prude.

Despite her refusal to believe Shepard and her withholding of vital information regarding the Crucible during the War, Tevos' reputation and her public acknowledgement that she had been wrong in not playing ball with Commander Shepard during the Reaper War had earned her a tenuous second chance, especially given the tumultuous state of the galaxy following the War. The Council had needed some semblance of stability and familiarity to brace ourselves against.

Besides, she had apparently single-handedly held off a whole platoon of Reaper troops who had invaded the Council Tower with her impressive matriarch-level biotics. Then again, although they said that it was heroism, it could have easily been self-preservation. Always hard to tell with things like that, and it was testimony to her skill as a diplomat that she could frame her actions in so many different ways.

And I'd like to reiterate again, still a bit of a prude. When terrorists had captured the quarian ambassador and had intended to send her back one piece at a time she'd pushed hard to meet their demands rather than authorizing a rescue operation. Easily my least favourite councilor.

To the right of Tevos stood Radal Jath, the councilor for the Salarian Union. Voted in less than three years ago, Jath had a reputation for being ruthlessly intelligent, pragmatic, and yet unflinchingly fair. Hailing from a prominent clan on Sur'kesh, Radal Jath was one of the few female salarians to ever choose to serve in the STG in a species which was nearly ninety-percent male.

After the Dalatrasses all voted to abstain from involving the union in the Slaver Fringe Wars, Commander Jath personally led five different STG cells down to nearly a dozen slaver-held planets to free salarian slaves while the slavers were busy fighting the Systems Alliance. With the support of the STG, rumor has it she then blackmailed, out-leveraged, and out-maneuvered all of her political rivals to become salarian councilor.

She's ordered me to wipe out particularly heinous slaver groups and mercenary bands at least nine times over the years. She was alright.

And to the left of Tevos stood none other than Councilor Adrien Victus, famed war hero of the Reaper War and the former Primarch of Palaven. Losing his son during the war, spearheading the Krogan-Turian Alliance alongside Shepard, then personally leading the bulk of turian forces on the Battle for Earth, Adrien Victus has had at least four full-length films written about him in the last two and a half decades.

He was the cornerstone of the new Council, moreso than even Tevos was despite her one hundred and fifteen year reign. He alone kept the group together in my opinion, tempering Jaths more bloodthirsty tendencies and pushing Tevos into action when she'd rather sit and wait. Him and Jath frequently worked together to ensure that the Council wasn't the cadre of thumb-twiddling, self-absorbed sycophants that they had been during Shepard's time.

And Victus was crafty, craftier than anyone could give a turian credit for. He could play diplomat almost as well as Tevos could, and yet he wasn't bull-headed like Jath was when it came to using us Spectres to apply lethal force to safeguard the galaxy, instead preferring to send us out on espionage, counter-intelligence, and even assassinations instead of the regular torch and burn. He always gave us the fun missions. Easily my favourite.

And last but not least, the Human Councillor.

Councillor Amanda Lanllavan had been a lawyer back on Terra Nova and had actually been the Colonial Prime Minister for nearly half a decade before being elected to the Citadel Council in 2309, replacing Councillor Bagan. At only forty-seven years old, she was relatively young and unapologetically pro-human.

She was in the game for one reason and one reason only – to secure and protect human interests. But when it came to major decisions, whereas Tevos represented one side of the scale, Jath the other, and Victus was the middle ground, Lanllavan often played both sides much to the frustration of her fellow Councilors.

Now that there were four Councilors, all major decisions required at least a three-to-one vote to pass. Lanllavan often put herself in the position of the deciding vote, seeing as no-nonsense, former soldier Adrien Victus routinely sided quickly with the decision he believed to be the right one. She often stalled votes and leveraged her position to secure trade benefits and expansion rights for the Systems Alliance.

It was one of the reasons why Victus had been pushing for the inclusion of either Krogan or the Volus to the Council for some time now. The Krogan Federation under the leadership of ambassador Urdnot Bakara and Warmaster Urdnot Wrex had blossomed ever since the curing of the genophage during the Reaper War, and even the asari were starting to think that the Volus Protectorate has contributed too much to the galactic economy for too little for long enough.

The inclusion of a fifth seat would rob Lanllavan of much of her power. The fact that the Turian Hierarchy shared close relations with both the Volus and the Krogan didn't bother me. Lanllavan often stalled on decisions I considered important in an attempt to squeeze as much as she could for the Systems Alliance before casting her vote.

I wasn't particularly pro-human. I'd happily see a slight increase in trade tariffs or a reduction in human colonial expansion rights if it meant that major decisions were decided upon more decisively and that other species received proper representation and preservation of interests in galactic politics.

The Citadel Council ladies and gentlemen, the four most powerful individuals in Council Space.

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Citadel Tower – Council's Private Meeting Chambers_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

By merit of seniority and longest tenure, Tevos naturally got to speak first.

"Spectres Percival, Kitiarian, and Cloud. It is good to see you three alive and well," Councilor Tevos smiled. She held her arms out in the traditional asari welcome gesture.

"You are a welcome sight indeed, Spectres," added Councilor Victus. Councilors Jath and Lanllavan both nodded in agreement.

As was our customary protocol by virtue of rank, age, and above all, maturity, Percival bowed on our behalf and addressed the Council. "Thank you, esteemed Councillors. It is good to be back."

Let's move forward with the assumption that we've all read their reports and we all know what's at stake, so let's dispense with the pleasantries, my fellow councilors," Jath asserted.

"Councilor Jath, you are indeed correct," Councilor Tevos agreed. "Let's move on to the matter in question, Spectres—your mission aboard the SSV Hippocrates and the appearance of these terrible creatures," she shuddered.

Councilor Tevos stepped forward and tapped on her omni-tool. Immediately a number of video files popped up on the holo-screen behind the councilors.

"We have a number of questions we'd like for you to answer before we share with you what we've learned," Tevos began.

She clicked the first video file and immediately footage of my fight with the saboteurs in the hangar bay came up.

The footage was recorded from Cade's helmet and I watched on the screen as my ambush was halted by the turian saboteur. My lips curled in a half-smile as I watched myself melt half of the salarian's skin off with my Warps, which then disappeared as I watched myself get my ass kicked by Locke, the rogue N7.

Tevos froze the video. She then looked at Cade and I.

"Operatives Cloud and Kitiarian, I understand that you two, along with Private Galen Verus and Doctor Jaelen Veers were present when the saboteurs made their escape," Tevos began.

"Yeah, we were, councilor," Cade said. I nodded to support my friend's statement.

Tevos clasped her hands behind her back. "Your mission reports regarding conversation among the saboteurs indicated that they all seemed to be working under the direction of an entity known as Mordred. Is that correct?"

We both nodded in the affirmative. Tevos nodded and addressed us again.

"We want to clarify that you believe that the lead saboteurs in question were not, in fact, responsible for planning the events aboard the Hippocrates, that they were working under the direction of someone else, and that these events were deliberately orchestrated as part of a larger plan – not a random, freak accident as we so dearly wish to believe?"

Cade and I both nodded. "Yes councilor," I replied. "Conversation between the lead turian and human saboteur indicates that they purposefully instigated the outbreak aboard the Hippocrates to gather information, possibly regarding these creatures, and that all of this was under the direction of the entity known as Mordred."

"Okay, thank you Spectres," finished Councilor Tevos.

"Spectres," Lanllavan began next. "You included in your report the DNA analysis obtained by one Doctor Jaelen Veers and a video recording given to you by one of the saboteurs. All three of you have speculated that the phenomenon currently plaguing Earth and only now manifesting itself in certain planets within the Asari Republic and the events aboard the Hippocrates are perhaps one and the same."

Percival stepped forward and nodded emphatically. "Yes ma'am. We have reasons to believe that aggressor DNA from the Reaper Cores are responsible for both events, you'll find the full explanation within our report. I wish to go on record to state that unless we act now we could be seeing these outbreaks on core planets all over Council Space."

All four of the Councilors set their mouths in a grim, straight line. That was good, if all of them were simultaneously silent. Or maybe it was bad. Either way, it meant that they were taking us seriously. Hopefully they'd spent every hour the last two days reviewing our camera footage, viewing the events aboard the ship as we saw them. They knew the stakes.

Lanllavan swallowed nervously at the thought of these outbreaks appearing all over the galaxy and nervously rubbed her hands. "We don't doubt that, Spectre Percival. Our question is whether or not you might know where we could get the full recording. The recording you sent us was partially corrupted and we believe that the information within could be vital to our efforts to stop any more of these tragedies from occurring."

Both Cade and Percival looked at me expectantly. I had been the one to receive the recording from Olivia. It had been surreal, watching the video in the labs and listening to the woman with the accent talk about how the DNA of a harvested species might still be _alive_ , even after the Reapers were all deactivated two and a half decades ago.

I cleared my throat and addressed the human councilor. "No, not to our knowledge. When we pursue the saboteurs I will make it a point to inquire after it, however. Any idea who was the woman on the video?"

Both Tevos and Victus both shared an almost imperceptible look between the two of them before they too shook their heads alongside their fellow councilors.

"We've got STG's finest trying to find this human, Spectre," assured Jath. "But for some reason, there's nothing in our databases. It's like someone wiped this person's entire digital footprint. Short of going around and showing people the woman's picture, there is not much else we can do. Rest assured, I will have my teams continue their search."

All three of us nodded. Damn, this woman was our only lead on finding out more about these Reaper Cores.

"As per your recommendation, we are currently forming special task forces to investigate the locations of Reaper Cores, headed by some of your very own fellow Spectres," Jath continued, "but finding and identifying these cores that contain the aggressor DNA will take time we might not have. Worse, word might get out and we might have galaxy-wide riots."

I cleared my throat. "Do we have a potential lead on how to do that, Councillors?"

The turian councilor and former Primarch shook his head. "No, Operative Cloud. The loss of the Prometheus research data has set us back, but thankfully we have the samples you've returned with, plus the Reaper CPU. Observation posts over Earth are still providing us with a stream of data regarding the spread of the phenomenon on the planet, and hopefully from that we will gleam some sort of method to identify the Cores with the DNA."

The salarian councilor nodded towards me and typed something into her omni-tool. "The Reaper CPU you recovered has been invaluable. It contains a larger amount of the aggressor DNA than any of the other samples you brought back. Through it we hope to decipher the more evolved and developed stages of the aggressor DNA and hopefully construct a means of defense."

I smiled wryly at Percival and Cade, who both promptly rolled their eyes and shook their heads.

All four councilors exchanged glances one more time. That wasn't a good sign. I stood with some trepidation as Victus cleared his throat and began to type something into his omni-tool.

"There is one last thing I wanted to clarify with you, Spectres," said councilor Victus.

And finally one last video came up on the screen. It was actually two videos technically, the first was a video of the final moments of one of the saboteurs we had fought in the machine room aboard the Hippocrates, the one who had surrendered and then tragically took her life not moments after.

I recognized it from my own camera footage. I watched once more as she fell to her knees and began to talk about transcendence. Mercifully, Victus ended the video before I was forced to witness her take her own life again.

He then swapped to another video, one that I also recognized from my own camera footage. It was a recording taken outside one of the containment airlocks, from my first encounter with the creatures.

I watched again as the Corpser shoved its metal talons into the marines arm, climb on top of him, and begin to infect him with his Crawler parasites. I watched as the marine screamed and fought and eventually died, rising moments later to become one of them.

Tevos swallowed nervously and Lanllavan looked to be on the verge of throwing up. Victus had a noticeable frown on his typically stoic face while Jath merely stared impassively at the video.

Beside me Cade's plates clinked together as he shifted from leg to leg and Percival's jaw subtly clenched. I crossed my arms over my chest and forced myself to watch the whole thing from beginning to end.

"Spectres…" Victus swallowed, "is this transcendence?"

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Citadel Tower – Council's Private Meeting Chambers_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates._

After answering dozens of questions about the creatures and their capabilities, the councilors finally moved on to the subject of the saboteurs, particularly their identities. The human councilor cleared her throat and opened up for her fellow politicians.

"Spectres, as you know the SSV Hippocrates might have been a Systems Alliance ship, but contained within its various divisions and its command structure members of the Turian Hierarchy, the Salarian Union, the Asari Republics, and even the Krogan Federation," Lanllavan began.

"We've looked over the ship's crew logs and your video recordings and STG has managed to identify all of the lead saboteurs," Jath explained. "Surprisingly, it wasn't hard, nor did they make any attempt to mask their true identities. This is unsettling, Spectres."

The salarian councilor pulled up an image of a gray, wrinkled salarian with a myriad of scars on his body—the salarian saboteur.

"This is Morder Zakiah, STG, one of my very own," Jath began. "He was assigned alongside an STG security force aboard the Hippocrates to watch over key salarian assets such as Doctor Veers, among many others."

His bio listed him as forty years old, old for a salarian. He had been in active service for nearly two decades and had participated in dozens of classified operations.

"In your footage of him aboard the Hippocrates, he exhibited mild-to-severe psychopathic behavior and possible bipolar disorder, something that the STG regular psych evals began to pick up four years ago, after a failed mission to raid the base of a Terminus Systems krogan warlord that resulted in Captain Zakiah sustaining several permanently-disfiguring wounds," the salarian councilor explained.

Jath sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "There was nothing in his communications and in his behavior that indicated that Captain Zakiah had intended on defecting, but being a skilled and long-serving member of the salarian Special Tasks Group it is not impossible that he managed to successfully hide the fact. The psych evals did show the beginnings of these disorders, but after a lengthy investigation they decided that they were not yet debilitating to the point where his ability to perform his duty would be compromised, and was thus cleared for continued service."

"Nonetheless, your mission report states that he might very well now be KIA, courtesy of Operative Cloud," Radal Jath acknowledged.

Cade gave me a brief glance. I had jeopardized my health and my mind to kill the insane salarian by taking a drug that had enhanced my biotic powers, and he clearly hadn't forgotten that.

Councilor Victus picked up where Jath left off and switched to an image of a pale, white-scaled turian with light blue clan markings and red eyes.

"Your combat footage has also allowed us to successfully identify one Severus Tyrannus," Victus began. Compared to Zakiah, his service record was almost non-existent, comprised of nothing more than a few commendations and a handful of missions. The young turian was only twenty-three years old.

"The fifth and final son of General Lucius Tyrannus, Severus Tyrannus earned nearly every commendation there was to offer during his time in basic training. Heavily praised by his training officers and earmarked for early entrance to the Blackwatch, Severus broke every marksmanship, combat, hand-to-hand score record in the Turian Hierarchy dating back nearly four hundred years."

"He was accepted into the Turian Ghost Infiltrators and served two tours before going AWOL during a mission on Korlus," Victus explained. "His father had him removed from the clan and declared dead for his dereliction of duty. Since then he has been sighted in various mercenary outfits."

"He was part of a private military group stationed aboard the Hippocrates that the Systems Alliance had contracted to train their security personnel. There are few clues as to what his motives are for joining the saboteurs," the turian councilor finished.

Severus Tyrannus was an enigma. He had beaten Cade, easily beaten the marines, and had quite nearly bested I aboard the Hippocrates. He had had the opportunity to let Zakiah kill the marines and yet had not allowed him to do so. He was a hard read.

Councilor Lanllavan took over for Councilor Victus next and a picture of an attractive red-headed female came up on the screen. My fingers curled into fists at the sight of her and the scar she had left on my face began to burn. In my mind I was once again pulled back aboard the ship, listening to her whisper maddening thoughts in my ears.

"Doctor Olivia Flanagan," began councilor Lanllavan. "Ph.D in xenoscience engineering and assigned to Project Prometheus as one of the lead engineers on the mini-crucibles."

I starred dully at her picture, momentarily lost in my own memories. I could feel my heart rate spike and a bead of sweat begin to break out on my forehead as I involuntarily replayed those moments aboard the Hippocrates in my mind once more.

 _I want to take everything you care for and leave it in ruins._

"We've agreed with Spectre Cloud's analysis that her giving you the recording of the reaper researcher should not be construed as an attempt to betray her fellow saboteurs," Lanllavan continued. "Unlike Captain Zakiah, there was absolutely no indication that Doctor Flanagan possessed any sort of mental disorder, and yet your reports and your recordings of her behaviors seem to heavily indicate otherwise."

"Nonetheless, she has been confirmed KIA by all three of you, courtesy once more of Spectre Cloud. We will be sending teams to question her known associates," finished Lanllavan.

But I barely heard the councilors report. The picture of Olivia had seemingly summoned her ghost to the room, or at least that's what it felt like. It was almost like she was alive again, in my head, whispering and whispering and whispering. It took all of my self-control not to grab at my head like an absolute madman in front of the councilors.

 _I will haunt you for the rest of your days. Every time you close your eyes, I'll be there._

Blue sparks danced ever so briefly between my fingers, drawing the notice of Cade. He looked at me momentarily in concern. I clenched my fists and screwed my eyes shut.

I opened them again just as Councilor Tevos began to brief us on the fourth and final saboteur.

An image of a late middle-aged man with icy-blue eyes, gray hair and a salt-and-pepper beard popped up on the large screen. Locke. His gaze locked onto mine and pulled me back to the present, pushing Olivia back where she belonged – in my memories.

"And finally, Commander Thomas Locke, N7 designation," Tevos gestured at the picture. "Locke enlisted at the age of 18 with the Systems Alliance marines. He was invited to Interplanatary Combatives Training at the age of 25 where he graduated with the rank of N7."

The asari Councilor flipped to his service record. It was long, longer than any of the other previous saboteurs. The man had been in service for thirty-five years, longer than I'd even been alive. If the service record was accurate, the man had served in almost two-hundred and eighty-seven missions across more than thirty tours. A military lifer.

A series of holo-images lit up on the screen, portraying Locke fighting hordes upon hordes of Reaper troops beside a squad of soldiers, all of them bearing a bright red stripe running down their right arms.

"Thomas served with distinction during the Reaper War, in which he lost his only son and wife during the initial invasion of Earth. Him and his force of N7's were instrumental in buying Shepard the time she needed to complete the plans for the Crucible, participating in dozens of decapitation strikes, raids, and sabotage against Reaper-held targets," Tevos told us.

"He was stationed aboard the Hippocrates as the commanding officer of the security personnel on board. Like the other saboteurs, none of his past communications and actions have hinted at any desire to defect or to engage in such terrible actions. His motives too remain a mystery," the asari councilor finished.

And with that the presentation was finished. Victus shut off the holo-screen and the images all disappeared.

Percival, Cade and I had all stood silently as we absorbed what the councilors told us. Jath was right, the fact that none of this information was in any way difficult to retrieve was unsettling. The only reason a supposed group of saboteurs might eschew secrecy was if they didn't intend to be a secret for long.

Victus clasped his hands behind his back and straightened up. "Spectres, your mission will be to hunt down these individuals, to hunt down Mordred, and to stop whatever they have planned with the Reaper Cores and the aggressor DNA. You three have invaluable firsthand knowledge regarding these creatures and your personal interactions with the saboteurs can give you insight into their motives and their actions that none of our other operatives would possess—"

All three of us involuntarily tensed up at Victus' tone. We sensed a "but" there.

"—But you three will not be operating alone, one of your fellow operatives has specifically requested to join you in your operation and in light of her exemplary talents and her service record we have granted her request," Tevos added.

What?

Cade looked at both Percival and I, seeking some sort of clue as to what the councilors were talking about. Percival shot him a look of utter confusion while I merely shrugged. This was a bit unusual. Sometimes circumstances forced us to work with our fellow Spectres, but very rarely did a Spectre request to join our little squad.

The three of us were a bit of a running joke within the Spectre community, something involving an unhealthy amount of emotional attachment and dependence on one another and some deep-seated, tightly-masked, lightly-implied homosexual undertones, but the three of us had always laughed it off.

We were arguably the Councils most successful operatives specifically because of how well we synergized with each other. Our fellow Spectres recognized that and in turn understood not to disrupt that inexplicable serendipity by butting in as a fourth wheel.

As if on cue, the doors behind us slid open and the councilors all looked expectantly behind us.

The three of us turned around to discover the identity of our new, fourth member. I saw her saunter in and immediately uncrossed my arms and looked to my two friends, unable to mask the alarm on my usually stoic face.

A while back I mentioned that Percival was the sixth human ever to be inducted into the Spectre Corps. I was the seventh, beating out the eighth human Spectre only by virtue of my name being alphabetically ahead of hers.

Elektra walked in as if she was on a catwalk, each leg falling confidently in front of the other like she was walking a tight, thin line. She was clad in Ariake Technologies armor nearly identical to mine, except whereas mine was black with dark-blue trim, hers was black with dark-purple trim and a couple of hearts carved into her chestplate. Her Predator pistol was holstered on her left hip and her M-27 Scimitar was slung over her upper back. An N7 Hurricane was clipped horizontally beneath it.

Percival nodded professionally to her while Cade groaned as dramatically as he could, uncaring of how it would affect his image in the eyes of the four most powerful political figures in the known galaxy.

Councilor Victus put on his most authoritative general's voice, the kind that brooked no disagreement. "Spectre Elektra will be joining you on your mission. I understand that you three might feel that you do not need her assistance, but this mission is too important for pride to overcome prudence and caution. These saboteurs are dangerous and you would do well to have another teammate watching your back. Some of you at least."

As Victus gave his orders all four of the councilors looked pointedly at where I'd been standing innocently the entire time. I'd lie if my cheeks didn't turn a bit red.

Cade growled and turned to me, shooting daggers out of his eyes. "This is somehow your fault! Spirits I'm sure of it!"

Elektra crossed her arms and smiled at us. "You didn't even say goodbye the next morning, Cloud. Cade, Percival, good to see you again."

"Good to have you with us, Elektra, we could always use the extra gun," Percival replied to the female Spectre. His feelings towards Elektra weren't nearly as strong as those of a certain turian who shall remain nameless.

"Shut it, harpy!" Cade spat at her before rounding back on me with a vengeance. "And you! What did she mean you when she said you didn't even say goodbye the next morning?!"

The councilors had begun to bristle at my friends little temper tantrum. It was a good thing Cade was so damn good at his job or else he would have probably had his status stripped for insubordination years ago.

"Cade, maybe you should calm down, the councilors are watching," I said.

"Besides, it's not what you're thinking, Cade," Elektra assured the irate turian. "Can we please return to the matter at hand?"

"No! I can't! This is your fault and I know it, Cloud! We had a good thing going and I know you somehow ruined—"

"Spectre Kitiarian!" bellowed councilor Victus. "That's quite enough!"

Cade jumped up and immediately snapped to attention. As much as he might clash with Elektra, he was still a turian at heart, and that meant obeying your superiors.

Councilor Tevos raised her hands in a calm-down gesture. "As you are well aware, these saboteurs are dangerous. We've reviewed your camera footage and your past mission records and we've noticed a certain… pattern of behavior regarding how each of you individually operates."

Once again, all four councilors looked at me. Scolded like an errant schoolboy who'd been caught sneaking into class, this couldn't be happening right now.

"I knew this was somehow your fault!" Cade hissed.

"The way the three of you protect each other is admirable, but there are some situations where that protection is not possible due to extenuating circumstances," Tevos continued. "Spectre Elektra has specifically requested to join your mission and we believe that her presence will help alleviate some of the difficulties you might encounter in those situations."

Just call it babysitting, mixed with a dash of spying and reporting to the Council.

"Besides, her combat skills are excellent," Jath added. "One of our very best."

That fact wasn't to be disputed. Elektra was as lethal as she was beautiful. And annoying. And bratty. And manipulative. You get the picture.

Elektra moved to take her place between Cade and I. Her charming smile was gone, replaced by a mask of respectfulness and deference that no doubt was in place for the benefit of the councilors.

"Thank you for your trust, esteemed councilors. I will assist my fellow operatives to the very best of my abilities in completing this mission," she promised.

Lanllavan, Jath and Tevos nodded like a trio of hens while Victus crossed his arms. Elektra unclasped her hands from behind her back and placed them on the holo-table beside me. I flinched as one of her fingers lightly brushed against mine.

"We have the utmost faith in you, Spectre Elektra," Victus replied. "As for your official orders, this is an omega-level threat, you four will be our lead investigators in finding out how to stop it. For now, however, standby while we receive confirmation regarding a report from one of our recon teams. The minute we have something concrete, we will send for you. Dismissed."

With that, the four of us nodded and turned around to leave, Percival leading the way followed by a ruffled and obviously flustered Cade. Elektra followed behind him, shooting a glance over her shoulder towards me. I met her twinkling gaze and ruefully shook my head. To say that Cade and her didn't get along very well was like calling the Reaper War a friendly paintball match.


	23. Chapter 23 - I'm Sorry

**Chapter 23 – I'm Sorry**

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Citadel Tower – Atrium_

 _Post-meeting with the Citadel Council_

We all exited the private council chambers and returned to the atrium. Tension arced like lightning between the four of us, but especially between Cade and Elektra. I could sense my friend chomping at the bit to start tearing into her, and judging by the furtive glances Percival was giving him so could Percival. In these situations it was best not to let Cade get in the first word.

We stopped outside the elevator and I turned to Elektra.

"So how did you pull this one off?" I asked.

Elektra crossed her arms against her chest and shrugged. "Lanllavan and Tevos both owe me one for the job I pulled on Illium and I convinced them that our past history makes me the best Spectre for the position. And honestly? The other night it sounded like you really needed help. "

I ruefully shook my head at myself. I was never going to drink again.

I wasn't an expert on turian psychology but I _was_ an expert on Cade, and as such I was amazed that Cade had made it this long without saying anything. Unfortunately Elektra had touched upon the one thing that always triggered Cade's anger, and in that instant my friend's inhibitions evaporated and he lashed out.

"I'm not buying the 'friend' act one bit, harpy," Cade snarled. "Since when have you ever given a shit about him?"

Elektra uncrossed her arms and angrily marched towards Cade, murder in her eyes. "What's the matter, Kitiarian, scared I'll steal your boyfriend?"

Cade didn't back down, instead he extended his talons and moved to meet her halfway, mandibles pulled apart in the turian equivalent of a snarl.

"More like I'm scared you'll slide another knife into his—,"

I wouldn't put it past them to immediately get into a physical fight in a crowded area, it had happened twice before. Percival and I exchanged a glance and immediately slid into action. I grabbed Elektra while Percival moved in front of the irate turian. Cade spat curses at Elektra over Percival's shoulder while Elektra continued stare murderously at my friend, both strained to push past us and get at each other.

Several dignitaries and their assistants who were currently waiting in the atrium had begun to take notice of their fight.

"Stop! Stop this!" ordered Percival. The big man shoved Cade, sending the smaller Spectre flying back on his ass before rounding on Elektra and starring her down until she'd calmed a bit. I remained silent but otherwise maintained my grip on our new fourth party member.

Percival then walked over to Cade and held out a hand, allowing Cade to grab it and pull himself up. Then Percival grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and man-handled him so that they were both standing beside Elektra and I. The Spectre and former N7 wrapped a beefy arm around both Elektra and Cade and pulled them close to shield us from the scrutiny of our now-curious audience. I took the hint and moved in to close up our little circle, crossing my arms.

"Maybe we weren't at the same briefing, because I could have sworn the four of us were just ordered to work together to stop this _omega-level threat,"_ Percival grunted.

Elektra let out a whistling breath between tightly clenched teeth while Cade splayed his mandibles out even wider. I continued to stay silent and let my friend take the lead, merely nodding along at Percival's words.

The big man looked both of them squarely in the eyes. "An omega-level threat—these creatures appearing, spreading, and _killing_ on dozens of different planets. That's what we've been tasked to stop."

Elektra began to open her mouth with the intention of saying something but a vicious look from Percival halted her dead in her tracks.

"I want you both to tell me whether or not either of you believe that you two fighting will in any way, shape, or form help us save the _billions_ of lives that depend on us, because if you do then I will happily stand aside and let you both tear each other apart," Percival continued. You tell 'em, Percival.

"But _if_ , like Cloud and I, you believe that we are stronger working together than apart, then I'm begging you, stop this childish shit, we're Spectres."

Percival and I watched as our two fellow Spectres slowly took Percival's words to heart, cooling the both of them down. My friend was right, we were indeed stronger together than apart. I didn't exactly like Elektra, no more than Cade did, but the stakes were too high for me to let my personal feelings work against what was best for the mission.

People were depending on us, and yet here were two of the galaxies most talented individuals acting like a pair of children. We couldn't afford to fight amongst ourselves, not when the whole galaxy stood on the precipice of destruction and chaos.

Elektra was the first to break. She looked down abashedly before looking Percival in the eye and nodding.

"We're stronger together," she admitted.

Cade narrowed his eyes at her statement but the apologetic look that she gave him in turn subdued enough of the raging fire within the turian Spectre that he too could see the wisdom of Percival's words.

"We're stronger together," Cade relented.

Cade held out a taloned hand that Elektra took immediately. They would never like each other, would never be friends, but they would work together as we did our best to stop this galactic Armageddon that the saboteurs had such a hard-on for bringing about.

Percival let out a satisfied nod and removed his arms from both Elektra and Cade. "Good. We need to work together more than ever. I'm not asking you to become best friends, but I am asking you to become teammates, to have each other's backs in combat, and get inside each other's heads and work with each other's strengths."

"That's exactly how you and I became best friends!" Cade complained.

"Best friends," Elektra air-quoted with a wry smile.

Cade was about to round on her again but Percival placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Cade, relax. Besides, if there is anyone you should blame for Elektra joining the mission, you should probably blame Cloud. The boy can't hold his alcohol."

And so Cade rounded on me instead.

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium_

 _Currently outside of the Van Holt Apartments_

I parked my skycar down on the steel-gray landing pad and hopped out. Before me towered a pair of nice, quaint-looking apartment complexes. They looked clean and well-maintained, lacking some of the more pretentious architectural features that many apartments in the Presidium were afflicted with.

There was just one more name on the list. The first time the name had come up I had deliberately skipped it, telling myself how understandable it was that I wasn't ready for it, and to give myself a bit more time before tackling it. I had moved on to the next name and told myself that once that name was done, I'd go back. Once I felt sufficiently prepared I'd make things right.

But after that next name I didn't feel any more prepared that I had been prior. And so I moved onto the next name, and the next, and each time I'd tell myself that after this one, I'd be ready.

Eventually I ran out of names, and I was no more ready than I had been the first time the name had come up on my list.

I decided that this one just one of those things that a person could never be truly prepared for. I had encountered such things in the past, and long ago I learned that the best way to deal with it was to just do it, even if you didn't feel prepared at all. It had been a hard lesson to learn, but one that I had taken to heart.

I sighed and stepped inside the building. I walked past a group of men seated in the lobby who gave me dark looks and made my way over to the concierge desk to sign myself in.

I decided to forego the elevator, opting for the stairs instead. That way I'd have some time to think about what I'd say before I actually had to say it.

But before I'd even formulated a single sentence, I was already on the twenty-fifth floor. I was a bit taken back at how useless my tactic had been. Twelve words, twelve words that barely constituted a sentence. Shit.

I sighed again, more heavily this time, before opening the stairwell door and making my way into the hall. I moved down it until I reached Apartment 25-G. I didn't even feel as if I was myself. I felt as if some kind of entity had taken control of my body, forcing me through a series of actions while I watched helplessly from above.

My hand hovered inches away from the doorbell. My heart caught in my chest and that sense of unpreparedness came rushing to the forefront in force, threatening to overwhelm my tenuous desire to cross this name off my list despite of how unready I felt.

But I knew what to do. This wasn't any different from the same hard decisions that I'd made before.

I refused to give my feelings the second-chance that it needed to dissuade my mind and pressed on the doorbell. I could hear a slight chime from within, followed by a series of rapid footsteps and a young, boyish voice calling for his grandmother.

The door swung open, revealing a gray-haired, kindly-looking woman in her early sixties. Her hair used to be blonde from the looks of it and she had the exact same eyes as her daughter. It took all my self-control not to run.

"Hello Mrs. Connor…" I began. "My name is Cloud and I'm a Spectre Operative…"

I trailed off. That was all I had, twelve words.

"… from the Office of Special Reconnaissance and Tactics…" I trailed off quietly. Eight more words, bringing my total to about twenty.

Mrs. Connor looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue, but I merely stood there with my mouth open and my eyes glued to the floor.

The footsteps came back and a small boy of about six years of age with a mop of blonde hair and a big smile peeked out from behind Mrs. Connor.

"Grandma, who's that?" asked John.

"I don't know sweetie, is there anything I can help you with, Mr. Cloud?"

I didn't know what else to say. Instead I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a blood-stained, slightly-crumpled photo and held it out for her to see.

Mrs. Connor took it and looked at it. After about a second her hands began to tremble and I could see tears well up in her eyes. She pressed a shaking hand against her mouth and brought the photo up to her chest.

John cocked his eyebrows and looked up at his guardian. "Grandma, is everything okay?"

Mrs. Connor—Tanya—if the records were correct, quickly brushed a few tears away from her eyes before smiling down at the young boy.

"Everything's fine. Why don't you go play in you room for a bit while I talk with the young man?"

John nodded and smiled, shooting me one last glance before turning around and dashing back to his room. God, he looked just like her.

I waited silently and patiently in the doorway as Tanya took a few more moments to collect herself.

"Do you… do you want to come in?" she asked.

I nodded. She gestured for me to come inside so I slipped past her, taking off my boots.

The apartment was nice and cozy, with the kitchen unit affixed to the living room. I could see four doors, all of them open. Three of them led to bedrooms while the fourth revealed a home office. I could see John playing with a few figurines inside one of them.

One of the walls were completely dominated by a glass window while another was covered with shelves that held a myriad of holo-stills, books, and several doctorates that were placed in strong metal frames. I had spoken with the landlord a few hours ago. The rent was something I could cover for the Connors in the foreseeable future.

I walked over to the shelves and looked at them. Both Sarah and Paul's doctorates were promptly displayed, as well as a number of holo-stills that captured their graduations.

Several archaic paper photos were framed as well. I gently picked one up to study it. It was a picture of Paul, Sarah, and John at what looked to be John's birthday party. Several children were either held in their parents arms or standing around the young child as he loomed over a massive birthday cake. I hope that they'd had a dextro-friendly version, because from the looks of it the boy had made several turian and quarian friends.

Tanya moved to the kitchen and rummaged around a cabinet. "Would you like something to drink, Mr. Cloud?"

"Coffee, black please, and Cloud is fine, or 'operative'," I replied. Operative? What the hell man.

I gently set the picture down and moved to take a seat.

Tanya moved over and handed me a hot, steaming cup that I accepted gratefully. I inhaled the familiar aroma as she moved to sit on the couch opposite me.

We both sat in silence for a moment, Sarah's mother staring at the photo I had returned to her while I sipped tentatively at my coffee. John could still be heard in the other room, playing with his figurines. From the sound of it, Spectre John Starfighter was about to kick evil slaver Bad Ben's ass.

"So, you're a Spectre?" Tanya began.

I activated my omni-tool and pulled up my Spectre identification badge. Tanya put on her reading glasses as I held it out for her to see. She squinted at it for a good while as I waited patiently for her to finish.

"Yes ma'am, I'm with the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. If you want, I can patch you into my commanding officers," I offered awkwardly.

Technically that would require me to call the Council. The moment I realized the hassle that would be I internally face-palmed.

Luckily she didn't feel the need to call me out on my bluff. Tanya simply smiled sadly and shook her head. "There's no need dear. So, did you know my Sarah?"

I hesitated. I set the half-drained coffee mug down and crossed my arms over my chest to buy myself some time. She was looking expectantly at me the same way that the next of kin of each and every person on my list had done before her. It didn't really get any easier.

My trepidation must have been more palpable than I could hide, or maybe she was just so desperate for answers that she didn't care how she might have looked in the eyes of a complete stranger. Tanya wringed her hands together and bit on her lower lip as she waited while I struggled to put together the words that she'd need for some sort of closure.

"Please… They didn't tell me anything other than the fact that she's gone… They told me that I wasn't even allowed to talk about it. I haven't even told John yet," she pleaded tearfully.

I glanced back to where John was still happily playing with his action figures. His mother had been dead for six weeks and he still didn't have a clue.

The Council had deigned to inform the immediate family members of the victims aboard the Hippocrates of the loss of their loved ones, then swore them to secrecy in the interests of galactic safety. So far the lid had been kept sealed, but I'd heard through the grapevine that families were starting to feel unsatisfied with being kept in the dark.

They wanted to know how their loved ones had died.

I sighed heavily and looked up at Tanya. "I knew your daughter, Mrs. Connor."

It wasn't much. I'd learned after the first few names to let the bereaved dictate the pace with which I provided them the information. They'd start off with a tiny, opening question and I'd offer small, simple answers. That way they could control the pace that they received the information and they could decide exactly how much more they wanted to know.

Tanya nodded and smiled weakly. I waited patiently.

"I got a call from a man a while back," she began hesitantly. "He told me that both Paul and Sarah had passed in an accident and then told me that I had to keep it to myself and that they couldn't tell me how they died. They said that it was classified."

I nodded in agreement. "I'm sorry they couldn't tell you more. Trust me, if we could tell you exactly what happened we would, but there are circumstances that prevent us from doing so right now and I deeply apologize for them."

This sentiment worked on maybe half of the bereaved that I'd forced myself to encounter. The other half had been either too angry or too in shock to listen to the shallow condolences of my pre-prepared reply. I wanted to apologize for my response, wanted to tell them everything that happened. I kicked myself for being so damn bad at this.

"I understand, Sarah wasn't allowed to tell me much about her work either," Tanya reassured me. "But please, my husband and I have spent the last six weeks imagining the worst. She was our little girl, please, is there anything you can tell me?"

She began to cry. Really cry. I wanted to get up from my seat, sit down, gently place my arm around the grieving individual and pull them into my chest just like Percival said I should do but all I could do was sit there.

I struggled to come up with the words that she needed to hear. I didn't know what to do. Like every single name before hers I floundered and drowned haplessly as the loved ones of the lost either cried or cursed my name. Some wanted to know if their loved ones had suffered while others wanted to know if they had died for a good cause. None were ever prepared for the answer.

I remembered Sarah's last moments, how she had stood defiantly in the path of the creature that had once been Paul Messner. Love had made her stop, had made her put down her gun to try and reach her husband through different means.

Love had made her take a chance and love had exacted a heavy price. Love had taken a daughter from this woman, a girl that she had raised and loved and cherished.

My next words came out like ground glass, cutting my throat, especially when I had to say her name. "Your daughter, Sarah, she died trying to save her husband…"

At the mention of her daughter's name, Tanya's crying began to recede as she struggled to pull it back so she could hear me better. Tear tracks dotted her cheeks and her blouse was damp but otherwise her eyes were locked into mine, as if she could somehow see her daughter in them one last time if she looked hard enough. I forced myself to maintain her gaze.

Her husband's claws had torn through her chest and throat. She had fallen, struggling to catch a breath that would never come, but I couldn't tell her that.

"She died surrounded by people that cared about her…"

That I could tell her. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. Time had stood completely still as I had watched those claws go scything towards her. I remember being frozen in place, unable to move. I remembered running towards her as she began to fall, then holding onto her hand as she passed away.

Tanya held onto every word as if she were dying of thirst and my words were like precious drops of water. She had fallen silent now, wordlessly encouraging me to go on. I didn't know if I could, I was astounded I had made it this far to be honest. This was by far the hardest name to cross off my list.

I cleared my throat and continued. "Before she died, she told me to take care of her son. I'll be honest with you, Mrs. Connor. I didn't know your daughter for long, but she was one of the bravest individuals I'd ever met. I cared for her, deeply, and her passing has made the galaxy a darker place. I promised her I'd take care of John and I intend to honor her last request."

That I could also tell her. She had been brave and I fully intended to keep my promise.

She went silent for a while as she digested my words, but eventually a small, sad smile slowly crept onto Tanya Connor's face. "You're a good man. Sarah couldn't tell me much about her work but one thing I do know is that she was an exceptional judge of character. If she asked you to take care of Johnny then I trust her."

I swallowed and nodded my thanks. "As I said, I fully intend to keep my promise. Your daughter died trying to protect those shed care about and died trying to save her husband, I wish I could tell you more, but I really can't."

I wish I could tell her how she'd stood heroically beside me as we fought hordes of nightmarish creatures aboard the Hippocrates, or how she'd swallowed her fear to follow me unflinchingly as I struggled to retrieve the Prometheus data. But I couldn't tell her any of that.

I wish I could tell her how I'd been given a choice between her life and the Prometheus data and how I'd chosen the data. But I couldn't tell her any of that either.

Tanya stood up, hastily brushing away the tears that had formed in her eyes. "Thank you for telling me this… I can tell from your face that this hurts you as much as it hurts me. I'm just glad my little girl had someone like you caring for her."

I stood up as well and clasped my hands behind my back. "Sarah was my friend."

Tanya looked over my shoulder and suddenly brought her hand to her mouth. I whirled around, one hand on my knife, expecting a fight.

John stood in the doorway to his room, an action figure modelled after the fictional Spectre holo-vid character, John Starfighter, clenched in his hands.

"Johnny—," Tanya began.

John dashed into his room and slammed the door shut. Inside I could hear the sound of something being thrown against the wall. Tanya began to move towards his door but I held out my hand, indicating that I had this. She nodded and sat back down on the couch.

I walked over and tapped my omni-tool over the door's emergency sensors. They were coded so that emergency service personnel could enter even if it was locked. My Spectre Authority gave me the same access. It wasn't something that was designed to be abused like this, but if you thought I was bad with grieving adults, just wait until you saw me with children.

Some promises were harder to keep than others.

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium – Van Holt Apartments_

 _Currently within the Connor Residence_

The interior of the room was dark, John had turned off the lights as well.

The bedroom was small. There were no closets to speak off, just a few dressers, a small desk with a couple of drawings on them, and a tiny bed. There was only one place he could be then.

John Starfighter lay on the ground beside his desk, a small indent on the wall above him the only clue as to his trajectory.

I walked over to the doll and picked it up. He was clad in bulky, over-exaggerated N7 armor and sported a lame crew-cut and a mean, meaty scowl. On the desk I could see his arch nemesis, Bad Ben and John Starfighter's sidekick, the turian Spectre known as Quincy Silver-eye, posed in a dramatic fight sequence.

I'd seen a few episodes of that particular cartoon series. It was alright, Cade liked it, said it reminded him of us. I disagreed, there was no way in hell I'd ever have a crew cut.

The drawings on his tiny desk were all of pictures of John, Sarah, and Paul. There was a drawing of them going to one of the parks in the Presidium that I recognized by its crooked swing, and another drawing of them having a picnic, and another of them on a couch, watching holo-television together. In each and every single one all three of them were smiling.

I averted my eyes and looked away, the Spectre action figure still clutched in my hand.

I slowly made my way over to the small bed, action figurine in hand, and sat down on the ground with my back against it. I could hear small, quiet sobs coming from beneath it that were quickly smothered into sniffles as I sat down.

I played with the small action figure. The paint on the armor was worn down and heavily smudged, indicating that the figure was likely used very, very frequently. This particular model had only been released a year ago.

I moved the figures arms around, trying to use it to put myself in John's shoes. What did he need to hear? What had I needed to hear, all those years ago?

How do you tell a six-year old boy that his parents weren't coming back? He already knew his mother and father were both dead. How did I tell him that everything was going to be okay? That'd he'd eventually learn to move on with his life, that time would heal his wounds and that this tragedy wouldn't scar him for the rest of his days?

Eventually I gave up and rested my hands and the action figure on my lap. I stared at John Starfighter as I tried to think of what to say. John wasn't an adult like all the other people I'd talked to. He was just a kid. I wasn't prepared for this. I wasn't _good_ at this.

Biotic combat, snap-shooting, infiltration, taking lives, that was what I was good at.

"John…," I began. "Your mother, Sarah, before she left she asked me to look after you…"

I swallowed and struggled to come up with what to say next.

"You might not believe me, but I know what you're going through. I lost both of my parents as well when I was young, younger than you are now."

I could hear a thousand versions of me inside my head screaming at myself to stop talking, to shut up, but I could hear one person inside me encouraging me to go on. It was enough to get me to continue.

"It's hard, there's going to be days where you won't think about them at all, and then there's going to be days when they're all you think about, and when that happens the pain will hurt so bad that you won't think that you can bear another second of it."

I looked back and forth around the room, trying to find something to focus on so that I could keep all the emotions at bay. Memories welled up in my own mind that threatened to break down the walls that I had imprisoned them behind but I viciously beat them back. This was about John, about helping him through his loss. This wasn't about me.

Eventually I found the strength to continue talking. I knew I couldn't end it on a note like that. He was only six years old. He needed hope.

"The pain will be hard to endure, but you're going to find the strength to make it through it. You're stronger than you know. You're going to live a full, good life, just like your parents intended. I promise," I finished quietly.

And so I sat there with my back against his bed for what felt like hours, lost in my own thoughts, starring at this little plastic action figure held lightly in my hands.

The sound of rustling behind me snapped me out of my trance. John crawled out from beneath his bed, wiped a snotty nose on his blankets, and sat down beside me.

"Are you a Spectre?" the little boy asked.

I looked down at him and nodded. "Yeah, I am."

John gently reached a tiny hand out and pulled John Starfighter from my hand. He grabbed him and held him tightly to his chest.

"I want to be a Spectre when I grow up," John said.

I didn't know how to respond to that. Instead I raised a hand and gently ruffled his hair. It was blonde and soft, just like Sarah's had been.

"I think you'd make a great Spectre," I told him.

John nodded his tiny little head and looked up at me with big, innocent blue eyes. Her eyes.

"Because Spectres save people."

I stopped and pulled my hand back. Pain lanced through my chest, it hurt like nothing I'd ever had to endure before.

"Yes, because Spectres save people."

The small boy wiped away the last of his tears and nodded. "Did you try to save my mom?"

I brought the back of my hand quickly across my face and nodded back at John. "I did," I told him.

We both sat in silence for a while, our backs against his tiny bed.

* * *

 _March 8_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium – Van Holt Apartments_

 _Currently outside in the skycar parking lot_

By the time I left the Presidium was entering its night cycle.

I crossed one last name off my list and put it in the back pocket of my jeans, beside a picture that Tanya had insisted that I keep.

The shrink had told me that finishing the list would bring me some sort of closure, that it would ease my supposedly guilty conscience in some way and allow me to come to terms with what I had felt I'd been responsible for letting happen aboard the Hippocrates.

Truth be told, I didn't feel any different. If anything I felt a bit worse, like I'd been forced to do something I didn't want to do. I could only hope that this was just one of those things that had to hurt hard before it got better.

I stepped into the parking lot and let out a sigh of relief as the cool air of the night cycle bit into my face. It was nice and refreshing.

The parking lot was empty at this time except for the rows upon rows of skycars already parked for the night. I was in the middle of fumbling for my key fob when I heard a series of footsteps begin behind me. At least four pairs, I guessed.

I turned around to see the group of men who had been loitering in the lobby earlier move towards me with scowls on their faces. Six individuals with obvious hostile intent, all human males between the ages in their early mid-twenties to mid-thirties, no weapons in hand but three of them were wearing jackets that could easily conceal a blade or a small pistol.

The group moved towards me in a rough circle, prompting me to begin to take a few wary, cautious steps backwards. I didn't stop until my back lightly hit a parked skycar. Putting your back against a wall and making yourself appear scared could, _could,_ work to your advantage when paired with the proper training and a healthy dose of luck.

A tall man with brown hair stepped forward. He was big, bigger than I was but slightly smaller than Percival. He was flanked by two smaller males – one of them about 5'10 while the bigger one was roughly my height. I'll call them Richard, Tan and Lanky respectively.

The other three were not as big as the three who were approaching me now, they merely scowled and tried to look intimidating as possible as they formed a rough semi-circle about six behind the three who were closing in on me. From left to right they were Blue, Beard, and Crew Cut. The three began to whisper quietly among themselves in between giving me dirty looks.

I took a deep breath. None of them had the slightest hint of ozone on them, all of them instead smelled like cheap cigarettes and even cheaper alcohol. Maybe not cheap alcohol, I really wouldn't know. Chances are none of them were biotics then. Biotic Amps and the mass effect fields they helped generate often had a distinct ozone, electrical smell that sometimes clung to an individual, marking them as biotic users.

Richard pulled up an extra step until he was about a foot away from me and looked down, a mocking grin on his face. His hands went behind his back as if to imply he had a gun held in his waistband.

"Do you know who I—,"

My right fist shot up into his throat before he could finish his sentence, then into the bridge of his nose before he could even wheeze. I followed it up with a short step towards him and a vicious left elbow that impacted hard on his right cheek, snapping his head to the side.

As Richard struggled to draw breath I placed both my hands on his shoulders and used him as an anchor to let off a powerful kick right into the side of Tan's face. The man went down like a sack of potatoes with barely a whimper.

I quickly twisted Richard around so that he was facing Lanky and gave the back of his waistband a quick pat-down. No gun, what a fucking tosser.

I shoved him right into Lanky, knocking him and Richard right into the way of Crew Cut and Beard before whirling to confront a shocked Blue.

The smaller man quivered indecisively in place as I took two steps towards him. He brought his hands up high to protect his face, expecting an assault similar to the one I gave Richard. Instead I jumped, pulled my feet tight up to my chest, then lashed out with a flat, double-footed kick that caught him square in the chest and sent him flying nearly three meters onto his ass.

Richard was still wheezing on the ground but Lanky, Crew-cut, and Beard had all recovered from the surprise of my attack and were now simultaneously moving towards me.

Lanky reached me first, maybe three seconds ahead of his friends. That was enough time for me to slip beneath his first punch, grab his extended arm and break it over my shoulder. He went down onto his knees with a scream that halted both Beard and Crew-cut in their tracks.

Crew Cut was the first to recover. After witnessing his friend's attempt to strike me he instead chose to dive for my midriff.

I timed it perfectly and brought my knee up directly beneath his chin mid-dive, snapping his neck up. I could feel his limp body tumble into me. I grabbed him and quickly checked for a pulse before throwing him bodily onto Lanky, who was still screaming on the ground. He was alive.

I felt a figure try to put me in a choke-hold from behind – likely Blue. Beard moved forward to help but I easily kicked him back.

Unfortunately for Blue he was about half a foot shorter than me and not nearly as fit. If he had been taller his maneuver might have had more effect, but as it stood I was easily able to use my core strength to prevent him from using his own body and the lower center of gravity it provided as leverage to tighten his hold. I ripped myself out of his grasp and threw him over my shoulder.

He fell onto the ground in front of me with an exhale of air, stunned. I raised my foot and brought it down hard on his face, breaking his nose. His head lolled to the side and he stopped moving.

Lanky was still screaming about a foot away so I kicked him in the side of the head too, hard. He fell to the ground to lie beside an unconscious Crew-cut. That fucking shut him up.

Beard stood on the periphery of the fight and looked down at his unconscious friends. That man was already beaten.

It had been nearly twelve seconds since I'd initiated the fight. Since then Richard had finally stopped wheezing and had managed to pull himself unsteadily onto his feet.

I closed the distance between us in half a second and launched half a dozen palm strikes into his chest and lungs before finishing with an uppercut to his chin that knocked him back onto his back, where he lay struggling to breath.

That was the straw that broke Beard's back. The man took one last look then turned and began to run.

I gave him a two-second head start before pursuing. It wasn't even fair, Beard was about 5'8 and probably two hundred pounds. I caught up with him before he had even taken eight steps.

I crashed into him from behind and brought him to the ground. He tried to get up but I slammed his head hard into the ground. I slammed it into the ground again, then a third time just because it felt good, because it felt right, because it made the pain inside me easier to bear. No need to break my knuckles against his face.

I checked for a pulse and found it, fluttering weakly. Satisfied, I let out a sigh of relief and got up.

My omni-tool lit up as I activated it and I immediately put a call through to C-sec.

A flanged turian voice came through a second later. " _This is C-sec, how can I help you?"_

"Hello C-sec emergency services? I would like to report a gang fight outside the Van Holt apartments parking lot. A few of them look badly hurt, can you send paramedics?"

" _Of course sir, can you ID the species for us?"_ the officer asked.

"All human, sir. Please hurry."

" _Done, C-sec and paramedics are en-route, ETA will be five minutes. Find a place to hide and stay safe until they arrive, citizen, we'll need—"_

I hung up before he could finish. My omni-tool wouldn't be traceable, one of the benefits to having access to Spectre-grade technology. Five minutes.

I moved to where Richard still lay on his back, struggling to breath. I pulled the Talon combat knife I'd had strapped to my back the entire time and flipped it three times in my hands before kneeling down beside him. I put one knee on the ground beside his head and the other one directly on his rapidly-bruising windpipe.

He began to struggle and choke, his fingers scrabbling weakly against the fabric of my jeans. I tapped the flat of the knife against his cheek and looked into his eyes.

"I actually _do_ know who you are, Richard Reddinger. Dropped out of the University of Terra on Bekenstein in 2206 and since then you've been quite busy," I began.

"Five counts of assault, twelve counts of drunken misdemeanors, two counts of alleged accidental manslaughter and three counts of possession of narcotics. You're lucky your parents had money or the law would have put you away for a long, long time."

I took my knee off of his neck, only to replace it with my eight-inch long, turian-made standard combat knife. His eyes went wide with fear and the pungent scent of urine suddenly assailed my nostrils.

I brought my face within inches of his and smiled. "But I'm not the law, at least, not the kind of law that money can protect you from."

For the first time since I'd launched my fist into his throat, Richard spoke.

"H-H-He's m-my son… I'm… his.. father…," he sputtered.

I pressed my knife deeper into his neck, eliciting a grunt of fear from the white-collar, wannabe gangster. I had known people like him my entire life, had my fair share of run-ins with his type as a young boy. They weren't the kind of people you wanted to grow up with.

"You're his biological parent," I corrected him. "Paul Messner was his father, and Sarah Connor was his mother."

I could hear the faint sounds of sirens cutting through the crisp air of the night. I had maybe three minutes left. I raised my head, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The air was cold and nice.

When I opened them again I wasn't smiling any longer. "I'll only say this once, Mr. Reddinger. John is not your son, not any more. You will leave the Citadel and you will never come back. If you try to contact him, I will find you and I will hunt you down and I will disappear you."

The sirens were even louder now. I got up and sheathed my Talon knife behind my lower back.

Richard Reddinger looked to be in catatonic shock. None of his friends that he had brought with him were moving and I wasn't going to stick around to find out if they'd ever move again. I didn't give a shit.

"Goodbye Mr Reddinger. I hope for your sake we never see each other again," I finished.

And with that final gem, I turned and walked away. I pulled out my key fob, got into my skycar, and I drove away into the beautiful, starlit night. Windows down.


	24. Chapter 24 - Not the Right Spectre

**Chapter 24 – Now's not the time for tears**

* * *

 _May 30_ _th_ _, 2186 – Location Unknown_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Unknown User)_

 _Twenty-Four Years Ago_

It was loud outside and people were yelling.

"Mom? Mom! What's going on?" I asked.

I sat with my legs dangling off the edge of the bed and watched as my mom shoved a bunch of her clothes into a large, black bag. She had a big frown on her face that made me a bit nervous the more I looked. Outside the people were getting louder. I was starting to get a bit scared.

"Jack, we've got to leave! Now!" mom yelled.

Mom's friend, Uncle Jack, peeked his head into the bedroom with a big frown on his face. I'd been seeing him around the apartment a lot more recently. Sometimes he'd take me out to buy me snacks and even pick me up from pre-school sometimes. I was starting to like him. He looked worried too.

"I need another minute, I've got to—,"

"There's no time! We need to get to Parliament Square, that's where the shuttles will—"

"One minute, Martha!"

Mom gave an angry shout and punched the wall hard, startling me. I could feel myself begin to cry but I tried my best not to let mommy hear. She often teased me by saying that if I cried then she would start crying, because my crying upset her. I didn't want to upset her but it was hard. The shouting outside was getting louder and louder.

She whirled around as I began to sniffle and immediately rushed towards me. "Oh baby, I'm so, so sorry! Don't cry, mommy's here."

She picked me up and patted me on the back, humming softly. For a second I couldn't hear the shouting outside and I wasn't scared anymore.

Uncle Jack peeked back into the room, a large, black backpack slung over his shoulders. "Alright Martha, I'm ready, let's go."

Mom gently put me down, then grabbed my own backpack and helped me put it on my shoulders. It was very heavy and my mom had packed a lot of my clothes inside.

"Okay baby, we're going away on a little trip, okay? We're going on a spaceship! You love spaceship's right?"

I looked up and smiled at her. I loved spaceships, I wanted to pilot a big spaceship one day.

A loud horn blared outside and I jumped up in fear, looking frightfully out the window to try to spot the source of the noise, but I felt my mom gently cup my face and tilt my head back so that I was looking at her.

"Baby, I know you're scared, but I need you be brave, okay? Can you be brave for mommy?" she asked.

I wiped my nose on my sleeve and nodded. Of course I could. I watched as mom pulled out a big camera just like the one dad used to have and turn it on.

"I need you to stay close and hold onto my hand at all times, okay? And whatever happens, if I tell you to run, you run and you don't stop. You don't look back, understand?"

I nodded, getting a tiny bit scared once again. She took my hand and together we walked into the living room where Uncle Jack was tapping his foot impatiently outside. When he saw the camera in mommy's hand his eyes grew wide.

"Jesus, Martha! Why do you even—,"

Mom slid the camera beneath her jacket and rounded on him, she wasn't smiling and looked at him like she'd look at me when I did something bad.

"Shut it, Jack. You better not have grabbed anything I didn't tell you to grab, we're running late as it is," mom hissed.

Uncle Jack nodded and opened the door to our apartment. Outside I could see some of our neighbors standing over several large suitcases talking nervously to each other. There was Mr. and Mrs. Parker, sometimes I stayed at their place after school.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Let's go, come on!"

Mom squeezed my hand and together the three of us left our apartment. I shot a worried glance at my room behind me. I hoped no one would steal my action figures.

The three of us moved down the corridor and towards the stairwell. I looked up. We were followed by many of our neighbors as well, also packed for a trip. Maybe they were going with us.

I was having a hard time keeping up, Mom and Uncle Jack were walking too fast and I was having trouble holding onto her hand.

I felt her let go, only for her to pick me up under my arms and carry me.

"Let's go, Martha! Move it!" Jack screamed.

I could hear another loud horn outside and feel the stairwell begin to shake. I wrapped my hands tighter around mom's neck while she gently rubbed my back. Mom was breathing heavily now, and above us I could see dust falling from the ceiling. Some of it landed in my hair but I quickly brushed it off, irritated.

We finally made it outside where a bunch of people were running and yelling. I looked up in the sky and saw a bunch of really cool spaceships making red lights.

"Oh God! Jack, they're here!" Mom cried.

Uncle Jack grabbed mom's arm and pulled her along the bustling crowd. "I know! Let's just keep moving, okay!?"

I could hear several large cracks coming from down the street, near my school, followed by more screaming. It sounded like people were scared. I clung tighter to my mom and buried my face deeper into her neck, willing the noises to disappear, but I was too frightened to say anything.

I heard another loud horn noise, really close this time, and felt a wave of heat wash over my face. I heard my mom scream and I squeezed my eyes closed.

When I opened them again, all the people that had been running behind us – Mr. and Mrs. Parker included – were gone.

"Baby, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay! Just don't look!" mom assured me.

"Shit! Martha, look out!" Jack cursed.

I felt one of mom's hands come off my back and I saw her take her camera out of her jacket. She pointed it at a bunch of lumpy, red, weird-looking aliens and made some weird lights at them. They didn't look like any of the aliens I'd ever seen in my picture books.

The aliens made some loud noises and then fell down.

Mom put me down and I began running alongside her. Up in the sky I could see more of those cool black spaceships fighting Alliance ones. They looked like giant squids!

My mouth dropped in awe as I saw a big ship – an Alliance Dreadnought, just like the ones in my books – fire its gun at one of the squid ships. It was so cool!

I watched in amazement. Suddenly the squid ship emitted a loud horn and a bright, red beam of light hit the Alliance Dreadnought. It exploded in a loud whoosh that knocked all three of us to our knees. The light from the ship was very bright and I couldn't stare directly at it without my eyes hurting. I didn't like this anymore.

We all got back up and watched as the broken pieces of the Alliance Dreadnought fell onto the city.

"Oh my god, that was the Fuji," mom gasped. I slipped my tiny hand back into hers and she gripped it hard.

Uncle Jack grabbed my mom by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Come on, we're almost at Parliament Square."

Mom nodded and quickly looked at me. I nodded back at her and gave her a small smile that she returned. I was scared, but when I was scared mom wasn't happy, and I didn't want her to be unhappy so I tried my best to smile so she wouldn't know.

We ran for a little while longer, following behind a couple of people who were running ahead of us.

All of us were running towards a big field beside a park that mom and Uncle Jack had taken me to a few times before. In the middle were a bunch of spaceships and several men in armor carrying large cameras, yelling and pointing at people and then at the ships.

Some distance away I could see more of those lumpy red aliens. They were pointing their cameras at the men in armor and making bright lights at them as the men in armor did the same with their own cameras.

I watched as one by one the spaceships took off, leaving just one. One of them was immediately hit by a big red beam of light that caused it to blow up with a big flash. I covered my eyes with my hands as the pieces fell to the ground and the men in armor began shouting and yelling at each other. I was really, really scared now.

The people in front of us got aboard the spaceship. It was filled with people who all looked scared, some of them were even crying. There wasn't much room left.

Mom and Uncle Jack ran toward the ship but a large man in armor held out an arm and stopped them.

"We only have room for one more! There's going to be more shuttles landing in about five minutes!" the man screamed.

Uncle Jack immediately ducked beneath the man's arm and put one leg up on the spaceship but mom pulled him back. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Jack?"

"Getting the fuck out of here, Martha! I'm not dying here!"

He tried once more but mom pulled him back out harder this time. Uncle Jack fell onto his back and started screaming at my mom. I shrank away in fear and looked at him. I had never seen him so angry before.

"Fuck you, Jack! Lisa was fucking right about you, you're a fucking coward!" mom screamed. The man in the armor looked at them uncomfortably. A few of the people in the ship had begun asking loudly to leave.

"Fuck you, Martha! Look the fuck around you! You fucking think anyone gives a shit about anything except getting the fuck out of here?!"

"I have a fucking son!"

"Fuck your son—"

Mom and Uncle Jack had never screamed at each other like this before. Sometimes they talked loudly and mom would take me out for ice cream or pizza afterwards but I had never seen them scream at each other like this. It didn't help that the other people were yelling and screaming. I took my hand out of my moms and pressed both my hands against my ears, trying to make the noise go away.

One second Mom and Uncle Jack were screaming at each other, the next second Mom took her camera out and made a bright flash at him. I watched, terrified, as he fell to the ground with a hole in his head and the man in the armor started screaming at my mom to put something down.

I felt her scoop me up again and hold me out towards the man in the armor. Just then another loud horn noise cut through the air again, really close this time.

My ears rang and I couldn't hear anything. I looked back at my Mom and saw tears in her eyes. She was screaming something at the man in armor but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I wanted to hug her and tell her to stop crying, like she used to do to me, but the man in armor had already taken me and was currently placing me on the spaceship.

"Mum? Mum!" I screamed. I tried to struggle out of the man's grasp but he was too strong. I didn't want to go with him! Why was he not letting me go? He put me in the seat and clicked a belt around my chest. What was going on?

The man struggled to hold back my mom who was trying to move towards me. I yelled desperately at him to let her go but he wouldn't listen. I watched as my mom pulled a shiny necklace out from beneath her shirt and showed it to the man. After a second he let her through before grabbing his camera to go join the rest of his friends.

My mom grabbed my face with both her hands and smiled at me. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she planted a big kiss on my cheek. Outside the yelling and the horns were getting louder. I could hear a lot of loud snaps and crying.

"Mom, why are you crying?" I screamed at her. "You're coming with me, right?!"

My mom smiled as more tears slid down her face. "No baby, mommy can't come with you, okay? She has to wait for another spaceship."

I could feel my chest tighten. I didn't understand, why couldn't she go with me?

I violently shook my head. "No! No mom! You have to go with me! I don't want to go without you!"

She shook her head again. "I can't baby, I can't. I love you okay? I promise, I promise you that I'll find you!"

I shook my head, harder this time. I tried to hug her to get her to come with me but she merely grabbed my hands and put her forehead to my forehead.

"I need you to be brave, I need you to be brave, okay? You're mommy's little soldier, I love you…" she whispered.

I closed my eyes and cried. For a brief moment I couldn't hear the spaceship's engines or the yelling or the loud horn outside. I only felt my mother's hands around my own and her forehead against mine.

I felt her kiss me one last time on the top of my head and then I felt her hands leave mine. When I opened my eyes again the door was beginning to shut and she was starting to become farther and farther. I stretched my hand as far as I could towards her. Why did she let go?

"Mom? Mom?! Mom! No! No no no! Mom!" I screamed.

I watched as she smiled at me one last time and waved. Finally the doors closed shut and the noises stopped. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I began to cry.

* * *

 _March 9_ _th_ _, 2211 – Citadel, Presidium — Presidium Apartments, Unit N6_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

My eyes snapped open and I immediately sat up in my bed, gasping. I could feel cold beads of sweat dotting my forehead and the back of my neck, and a dampness to my palms. My torso and my legs felt like I had just come out of a cold shower. I let myself fall back onto my pillow, pressed both my hands to my eyes and groaned quietly

Beside my bed on the nightstand lay my alarm clock. It currently read 18:20 Galactic Standard Time, or roughly four-thirty in the morning if you were to go by the Terran Coordinated Universal time. At least I'd gotten roughly six hours of sleep, or five if you went by GST. I still used the TCU on my clocks out of habit, something that I had been trying to kick for a while now.

That meant that the day-cycle would begin soon on the Presidium.

My stomach growled, reminding me that I had skipped dinner the night before. I glanced down at my omni-tool, noting that Elektra had left me a couple of messages. I didn't bother to check them. I wasn't really in the mood to deal with her shit right now, especially considering the fact that since I'd left the Hippocrates I'd barely gotten a week's worth of uninterrupted sleep.

I decided to get dressed, find some breakfast, and pray that the Council would send us our new orders soon because I was getting really sick of waiting around.

Unlike some of the other Spectres, especially the veteran asari ones like Leliana, I didn't exactly have the patience, time, or inclination to formulate an extensive list of informants and contacts feeding me information. Percival had a few in the Systems Alliance military but otherwise I mainly depended on the Council and my fellow Spectres to hand me my missions.

I preferred to rely on consistently demonstrating my talents and my abilities to make me the Council's first-choice for missions, same as Cade. It was easier than entangling myself in the web of bribes, favors, and payouts that some Spectres relied on to pick up a decent assignment. That and I was lazy, not a people person, and couldn't charm someone if my life depended on it.

My stomach growled again, more loudly this time, reminding me that food was of the topmost priority. I sighed, there wasn't any point in lying around now. I got out of bed and made my way to the refresher.

The cold water washed away my sweat and dispelled some of the residual fatigue and lethargy, bringing me to a passable level of alertness. I shampooed my hair and used a razor to take off what little stubble had appeared overnight.

I stepped out, feeling rather refreshed, and slipped into a pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt. My knife went across my lower back and my kinetic shield generator went on my left hip. I double-checked my omni-tool, threw on my dark-blue leather jacket and left my room.

By the looks of it Cade was still asleep. His gaming computer was still on and his desk was covered with candy bar wrappings and old soda cans. I could hear the turian snoring in his bedroom. After I had returned from the Connor residence last night he'd still been playing Galaxy of Fantasy, trying to level up his turian rogue. He'd probably gone to sleep less than three hours ago.

I sighed and scooped up a bunch of his trash, throwing it in the mini-compacter we had in our kitchen unit, then quietly slipped out the door.

* * *

 _March 9_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium — Serenity_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes and slowly counted to ten.

The feeling of alertness I'd garnered from my cold shower had slowly evaporated as I'd made my way down to the Serenity. Sure, there were tons of places I could technically get breakfast, but few places I could get a drink along with it. And I'm not talking about fruit smoothies.

"Here you go, darling," smiled Callie. The young asari waitress set down a plate of scrambled eggs mixed with egg-whites, some roast vegetables, and a few slices of toast alongside a giant mug of steaming black coffee.

"Thanks Callie, give Ramsay my compliments," I nodded lightly. I tapped my credit chit against her omni-tool, adding a nice, big, tip. She had been in Steven's employ for about two years now and I was a frequent-enough customer that we both probably considered each other "acquaintances" rather than strangers.

Callie smiled again, then set down a second mug filled with kahlua, baileys, and two shots of expresso over ice. Beautiful, cold, and sweet, just the way I liked it.

The asari waitress gestured at my breakfast, then at my choice of morning beverage. "You know, that's quite the way to start your day. Rough night?"

I shrugged and took a large gulp of black coffee followed by a small sip of the alcoholic, sugary concoction. The sudden influx of caffeine began to pick up the slack that my cold shower had dropped.

"Something like that," I admitted.

Callie handed me some cutlery as I doused my food with pepper and salt. "I saw you the finish an entire bottle the other night. If you ever need to talk about it, you can always talk to me you know. Might do you a lot more good than drinking yourself blind."

I shoveled a bit of eggs in my mouth and tried to fight off a yawn that threatened to expose my half-chewed breakfast. "Thanks for the offer Cal, but I've got a handle on it, at least for now."

Callie shrugged and gently touched my shoulder before heading back towards the kitchen. "Suit yourself, love. The offer always stands."

The Serenity was actually relatively packed, even now. Most of the patrons were here for the food, I could see a couple of dock workers from various species seated together and even a few embassy workers chatting over breakfast. Light music drifted from an old jukebox and the room was filled with casual chatter. It was nice, easy to disappear in.

I finished my food and my coffee in about three minutes flat and then sipped tentatively at my drink. I had considered just ordering a whiskey on the rocks but I had been craving something a bit sweeter.

These nightmares were getting to be a bit too much for me to handle. I'd lost dozens of hours of sleep over the last six weeks to them and I was honestly starting to get a bit pissed. It was one thing to have to deal with those weird, new visions, but to have my old ones thrown in the mix as well? That just wasn't cool.

Maybe Callie was right. Maybe I should talk to someone, but the last person I'd tried to talk to had given me a list of names and had asked me to reach out to their kin in an attempt to both assuage my grief and help me work through my alleged guilt. Honestly, I think that I would have had a better time slamming my balls into a door. I wasn't too keen on doing anything like that again.

"There you are!" A familiar voice called out.

I turned my head and in walked Cade, Percival and Elektra. Cade had his standard hoodie over some wrinkled old T-shirt depicting the image of a popular band on Palaven while Percival had on some light-brown slacks and a garishly pink button-up.

Elektra looked as immaculate as ever. Her make-up looked professionally done and she was wearing a fashionable summer dress. Her long, brown hair was done up in a complex braid and she had what looked like an expensive handbag draped in the crook of an elbow. We four stuck out like sore thumbs amidst the sea of coveralls, company uniforms, and professional suits.

I dropped my head into my hands and groaned as all three of them slid into the seats beside me.

Percival picked up my finished mug of kahlua, baileys, and expresso and sniffed it. He wrinkled his brow and gingerly set it down. "A bit early for that, don't you think?" he asked admonishingly.

"Do they have a dextro-friendly version? It smells great," Cade asked. Like me he too had somewhat of a sweet tooth.

The big, blonde Spectre made a hushing movement with his hand and looked back at me.

"Is everything okay, man?"

I nodded and raised my hand to Callie, indicating that I wanted a refill for my diabetic harbinger and for her to bring Cade a dextro-friendly version. She smiled and moved to the kitchen as I clasped my hands together and starred at the bar, silently counting down the seconds until my drink would arrive.

Callie brought out another pair of mugs and set one down in front of me and the other in front of Cade. Before I could grab it Percival took it first and chugged half of it before I could even blink.

"Hey!" I complained. I grabbed the mug out of my friend's hand. "You can get your own you know."

Percival grimaced and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Nah, that thing is way too sweet. I don't know how you stay in shape drinking that shit."

"What are you talking about? It's perfect," Cade said as he took a sip. The turian sighed, then grabbed three more packs of dextro-sugar and added them to the drink.

"Dude…" both Percival and I said simultaneously. Elektra didn't say anything, she merely wrinkled her nose in disgust.

We all sat in relative silence as we watched Cade attempt to give himself type-2 diabetes. I suspected the turian wasn't too far off from his goal, considering the fact that I had cleaned five empty soda cans off his desk this morning.

I crossed my arms and waited for Percival to begin lecturing me like he always did for last nights shenanigans. Cade and Elektra must have both been thinking the same thing because Cade was looking at the two of us expectantly while sipping his drink while Elektra's brown eyes flitted back and forth between me and Percival. Percival and I?

Eventually the staring wore me down and I broke first. "How did you know where I was?"

Percival jerked his head at Cade. "Cade said you came home late last night, plus you weren't responding to any of our calls or texts. We pulled up your skycars navigational data and looked up where you were and where you'd been."

I inwardly cursed. That was a no-win situation, either I scrubbed the data and they noticed that I'd scrubbed it and get suspicious, or I didn't scrub the data and they could track me wherever I went on the Citadel. I heavily regretted linking my skycar computer with theirs, but in my defense it had seemed a good safety idea at the time. Cade had painted this awesome picture of him getting kidnapped by his political enemies and Percival and I tracking down the perps who'd mistakenly taken his car. Together we'd go in guns blazing and have a grand old time.

"We also pulled up the security footage from the Van Holt Apartments as well. Your striking is still pretty good but your grappling was sloppy, want some help with that?" Cade added.

I inwardly cursed again.

Percival shot Cade a dirty look before sighing and rubbing his eyes. "Cloud, we ID'ed all the perps there, including one Richard Reddinger. We also know you were in the Connor residence for over three hours."

My throat tightened up and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Why couldn't they just leave me the fuck alone sometimes? Why couldn't they take off the goddamn detective hats for one goddamn minute? The doctor gave me a list and now that list was finished, I didn't need any more psychoanalyzing. I just wanted to be alone.

My friend looked around to ensure that no one else was eavesdropping, then leaned in so that he could whisper. "Look, two of perps that cornered you are still in medically-induced comas and the rest of them are going to need anywhere between three weeks to three months to recover from their wounds, Surprisingly, Mr. Reddinger was in the best shape despite the obvious unwanted connection he shares with a certain individual."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes, the incessant mothering was really getting to me. It wasn't like six nobodies were going to take me down without heavy weapons, I hadn't even needed to use my biotics.

"They're fine, who gives a shit. They're all lowlife scum—."

"I don't give a shit about them, Cloud," Percival snapped. "As far as I'm concerned you did the Citadel a favor, but I am concerned about how you're goddamn coping with Sarah's death and how you're goddamn coping with these nightmares."

I narrowed my eyes at my friend. "How did you know about that?" I asked accusingly.

Percival and Cade both looked at Elektra. She bit her lip and looked away guiltily. "You talk in your sleep…" she admitted.

I scoffed again and shook my head. "Did Percival pay you to mother me when he's too busy to? Did he pay you to spy on me?"

Elektra instantly adopted a look of hurt on her face and I immediately felt a bit bad. That feeling went away almost as fast as it had arrived. She was only trying to help, sure, but it's not like she hadn't screwed me over before.

"No one paid anyone anything, you doofus. She's the one who asked us to come here this morning, Cloud. She's worried about you, as hard as that might be to believe," Percival explained.

Cade nodded vigorously beside him. "Yeah, I mean I don't know what the harpy's angle is, but Percival and I are definitely worried about you. Why didn't you tell us about how bad these nightmares had gotten?"

I sighed and hung my head in my hands for a few moments before resurfacing to face my friends.

"Because they're nothing, okay? Because they're stupid and annoying and idiotic and I don't need to make them a bigger deal than they are," I ranted. "Look Percival, she was just a name on my list and I promised I'd take care of her kid just like she asked, okay? I had to spend a few hours discussing it with the kid's current guardians and I'm sorry if I had to kick the asses of a couple of lowlifes on my way out."

I turned to my turian friend next. It felt like an out-of-body experience for me, to be saying so much so fast. I had a tendency to be a bit tight-lipped, and so for my friends to see me break that paradigm it had put them in a state of semi-shock, buying me the time I needed to say what I felt like I had to say.

"And Cade, on the ship you told me to get help. Well I got help. I did what you and the doctor asked and I got through the list, even if you thought that the list was stupid. I got through the list and I don't feel as if I need any more help, so I didn't say anything about these nightmares because honestly? I can handle them myself."

The words just came spilling out in. Some of what I was saying didn't make sense when I said it all out loud but it had made sense in my head. All three of them stared at me in silence for ten more seconds. God, I wanted to hit something so badly right now.

Elektra looked at me and I locked eyes with her. _I'm sorry,_ she mouthed.

She wasn't sorry about ratting me out to Percival and Cade, that much I knew. Stuff like that had never bothered her before. However, she'd seen the security footage of me at the Van Holt apartments and had likely filled in the blanks herself. I'd known her for a long time, I knew exactly what she was apologizing about, or who.

I'd never talked to her about Sarah the other night. She had likely connected the dots after she'd taken her suspicions to my two friends.

Sure she was a backstabbing bitch but in her own weird, twisted way I knew she cared. She was technically my oldest friend, even though she had trampled on our friendship like a horde of angry krogan from time to time.

Biting back the anger and the rage welling up inside me, I forced myself to nod lightly to her, a subtle sign to indicate that all was good between us. She smiled at me.

The door to the bar suddenly slammed open and an immediate hush settled over the room as all the patrons stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the newcomer. The sudden loss of ambient sound caught the attention of all four of us and we turned look at the newcomer as well.

A massive, hulking krogan in a pitted and scarred suit of brilliantly red armor and black trim stomped menacingly into the bar, a freaking Geth Spitfire hanging from his back. From the looks of his headplate and the size of his hump he was old, probably approaching his sixth or seventh century of life. That was bad news, an old krogan meant only one thing – he'd successfully killed everything that had tried to kill him.

His headplate was a lighter shade of red and his one good eye was a brilliant shade of amber. His other eye was white and dead and sat unmoving in its socket as his good eye took in the room around him. He had a massive crack running diagonally across his headplate and the rim of his collar armor was covered in scorch marks.

He lightly pulled the Spitfire from his back and dropped it to the ground with a heavy thud. Those things weighed nearly thirty-five kilograms and were designed to be used by twelve-foot tall Geth Primes.

When the krogan spoke it was like listening to an earthquake. You felt it more than you heard it, not unlike the flanging of a turian's voice. It was deep, deeper than anything I'd ever heard before, quite possibly the deepest voice that I had ever heard in my life. If you were to anthropomorphize a goddamn mountain, I'd suppose it'd sound like that.

"Which one of you is the Spectre? Comes to this bar a lot," he asked.

I immediately got up out of my chair. Percival made to grab my arm but I shrugged it off violently. Cade's scaly face lit up with the biggest smile I'd ever seen and set his omni-tool to record while Elektra simply stared at the hulking behemoth with wide eyes. He was probably eight freaking feet tall and if I had to say, weighed five-hundred pounds, maybe five-sixty in full armor.

I whirled towards my friends. "If any of you do anything to try and fucking stop me or interfere in any way, I will fucking hunt you down. Let me have this," I whispered harshly.

"Fine," Percival hissed in irritation. "Get it out of your system, but if it looks like he's going to kill you we're stepping in."

Elektra merely nodded while Cade laughed merrily. The turian was basically rubbing his hands together in glee. I pulled both my arms above my shoulders and stretched, then twisted my upper torso side to side a few times to loosen up. It had been a long, long while since my last bar-fight.

I marched towards the krogan until I was maybe two feet away. I barely came up to his chest.

"That'd be me," I told him. Nice, I congratulated myself. Short, simple, and sweet, no need for some shitty, badass quip to establish me as some kind of fucking suicidal idiot, the kind that talks a bigger game than he brings and then gets his ass handed to him on the floor of some dirty, rundown bar.

"Blue eyes, pale, though I wouldn't exactly describe you as gray," the krogan grumbled deeply. I furrowed my brow in confusion at his cryptic response.

"What are you—"

Alas, I didn't get to question finish questioning him about his awkwardly-worded characterization of me because he immediately shot his head forward in an attempt to headbutt me.

Fortunately I had anticipated that and slipped aside just in time. A successful headbutt would have probably but me in a coma a hundred times worse than what I'd done to Reddinger's henchmen last night, but I'd fought krogan before. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred if their target was standing within headbutting distance, they'd go for the headbutt.

Unfortunately for me the headbutt was a feint, leaving me unprepared for the heavy, armored hand that struck me palm-first directly in the chest.

It felt like I'd been hit by a battering ram. It knocked the air out of me and slammed me into a table currently occupied by a pair of quarians. I groaned in pain and struggled to catch my breath, the motherfucker had probably fractured my sternum. What a motherfucker.

Percival and Elektra both looked at me in stunned horror but otherwise respected my wishes not to interfere. They knew that I could handle myself, plus a heavily-armored krogan versus a Spectre clad in nothing but jeans and a T-shirt was definitely something you didn't get to see every day.

"You go girl!" crowed Cade. He laughed and whooped out loud and before I knew it the bar began to slowly erupt in slight cheers. Now _this_ was bar-fighting.

The quarian girls scurried away as the krogan stomped towards me, each footstep causing the floor to reverberate loudly. My mind flew into overdrive and I started to look around for anything that would even the odds. I immediately grabbed one of the mugs and threw it at his one good eye.

The mug shattered into a thousand pieces on his face and he was forced to cover it with his one arm as he continued towards me. I threw another one that shattered against his armored vambrace but that failed to halt his advance.

He made his way over to where I'd landed with one hand covering his good eye and then immediately brought his other fist down on the table, splintering the thing in half like it was made of matchsticks. The cheers from the patrons around the bar had begun to morph into shouts of terror and fear as the krogan roared in anger. The room trembled as he roared and I could feel the soundwaves shake my very bones.

But I had already slipped away before he'd landed his blow, having used the mugs to limit his vision as I made my escape.

I was behind him by the time his fist destroyed the table, allowing me the opportunity to stomp as hard as I could on the back of his knee.

I stifled a curse as the krogan barely buckled, the armor was too damn thick. I'd need a better tactic if I wanted to kick his fucking ass.

His arm swung around again and I just barely managed to duck beneath it. The motherfucker was goddamn fast.

"Stop this, man!" Percival called out. "It's getting out of hand!"

"Stay the fuck out of this, Perc!" I yelled at him. "I can take this fucker!"

I threw another mug but this time the krogan merely tucked his head down instead of covering his one good eye, causing my mug to shatter harmlessly on his headplate. He growled and I could feel the harmonics behind it reverberate through my bruised chest.

I was half-tempted with the idea of using my knife to even the odds, but since the krogan hadn't simply decided to unload into a crowded bar with his Geth Spitfire, I decided to be a bit lenient. I'd let him off with a light warning, this time at least.

I raised my hand, blue energy coiling around my fingers, and hit him with a powerful biotic Throw.

The wave of cobalt energy slammed into the krogan and hurled him into a wall, where he collapsed to his knees amidst a pair of broken tables and a couple of broken chairs. A couple of the waitresses screamed in alarm, I'd have to pay for that.

"I'll pay for that!" Elektra called out.

"Hell, I'll be able to buy Steve a new bar once I upload this to the extranet," Cade grinned and whooped. Fucking comedian.

I watched as the krogan struggled to his feet, threw back his head, and laughed uproariously.

"Ha! They didn't say you were a biotic!" he chuckled.

I stood with my feet planted and my arms covered in whispy blue tendrils of biotic power. "And they didn't say I'd be kicking some old toad's ass first thing in the morning but here I am."

That was cheesy, but I was really getting into it.

The krogan laughed again, then picked up a broken chair and hurled it at me like it was a child's toy. I managed to erect a barrier just in time to stop it from colliding with my face. He picked up another chair and sent it spinning into my barrier where it also smashed into pieces against it. Whatever, the furniture was ugly anyways, that's why I always sat at the bar.

"What's the matter, kid? You don't wanna fight anymore?" the krogan jeered at me.

He threw another broken chair, then a piece of the broken table, all of it impacting uselessly on my barrier.

The krogan chuckled again. "Fine, if that's how you wanna play."

He grabbed a salarian that had been cowering nearby and threw him at me, screaming. To clarify the salarian was screaming because the krogan picked him up and threw him like he weighed nothing more than a basketball. I really want to hammer in exactly how strong you'd have to be to pick up a one hundred and twenty pound, man-sized object and throw it across a room.

I cursed and dropped my barrier to catch the salarian. He collided bodily with me and knocked me on my ass onto a pile of broken glass. Fucking ouch.

I tossed the salarian aside just in time to roll out of the way of a heavy, booted foot aimed straight at my head. The tiles where my head had been just moments before cracked in two, exposing the polysteel foundation beneath. I'd have to pay for that too.

From where I was laying I brought my left hand up in a gripping gesture that hit the krogan in the side, freezing him in place and buying me the time I needed to scramble to my feet and regain my footing. I had to end this fight soon, but I couldn't throw a Singularity in here without endangering the patrons and I doubted a Warp would do the job.

I stared at the krogan in surprise as he began to slowly move in place, the old toad was fighting off my stasis.

Before I could come up with a plan he had already tore himself out of it. He aimed a flurry of heavy-handed strikes that I dodged as I desperately backpedaled in an attempt to put some distance between it and myself.

"Stop dancing and fight already," grumbled the krogan.

"Yeah! Stop being a girl and fight him!" cheered Cade. Elektra shot him a vicious look that the turian ignored as he continued to gleefully film the fight.

Eventually fate caught up with me and I slipped on a plate, landing on my ass. The krogan picked me up with one hand and hurled me over the bar, right past a shocked Percival, a mortified Elektra, and a scaly fucking asshole with a highly punchable grin on his face.

I got up immediately, shoved the recording omni-tool out of my face and vaulted over the bar back into the fight with an angry snarl, my biotics flaring up and down my arms, only to be forced to duck beneath another blow aimed at my chest. I wreathed my whole body in biotics, increasing my mass, and dove low for his legs, ducking beneath his attack, wrapping my arms around them and using my increased bodyweight to bring the hulking krogan to the floor.

He went down with a grunt and I proceeded to straddle him and rain a series of blows into the softer plates around his eyes, careful to avoid cutting my knuckles on his headplate ridges. With the heavy armor he was wearing, I couldn't strike anywhere else. Arm bars were pointless against a creature that big and I wasn't willing to use my knife just yet. I had to tire him out.

I then did the cheap thing and spat in his good eye, forcing him to blink to try and clear it and allowing me to avoid a few of his retaliatory strikes. Thankfully that expresso, baileys and kahlua mix had gotten me really phlegmy, and I was able to buy a good three or four seconds with that maneuver.

"That is disgusting!" Elektra shuddered.

"Fighting dirty, respect!" Cade cheered.

Eventually the krogan decided he'd had enough. With a loud roar he grabbed me by the neck, peeled me off, then got to his feet with his hand still wrapped around my neck, lifting me like I weighed no more than a child.

I'd had enough too. I pulled the Talon combat knife from behind my back and sliced it across his fingers, causing him to roar in pain and drop me.

Instead of dropping to my knees and gasping for my breath, I ignored the lactic acid in my limbs and backpedaled immediately into a fighting stance with the knife held before me, warily awaiting his next move.

But the krogan didn't attack again. Instead he stood there, sucking away blood from the knuckles on his injured hand while his one good eye stared menacingly into mine. He wasn't even breathing hard.

Around us the patrons had all fallen into a quiet hush, including my friends. They kept as close to the walls and as far away from us as possible but so far none of them had left, not even the salarian he'd picked up and thrown at me. All of them were fully invested into watching this showdown, even the bar's employees. Nearly a third of the bar and its furniture lay in ruins around us and not one of them had deigned to interfere. To be fair, the krogan bouncers usually didn't get in until the night shift.

To the audiences' dismay, the tension in the old krogan's shoulders disappeared and he dropped his arms to his sides in a cessation of hostilities. Thank god, fighting to subdue wasn't my strong suit. I suspected I'd accrued at least a dozen hairline fractures in my cheek and would probably need a scan of my chest to ensure that he somehow hadn't driven my ribs into my lungs. I'd be feeling this for days, even with treatment.

"Is this the part where you tell me I've got a quad?" I asked.

His chuckle could be felt throughout the room, like an earthquake or the shifting of a mountain. "No, this is the part where I tell you that if we go any further one of us is going to end up dead, and my daughter will kill whichever one survives," he said.

I sheathed my knife and spat out a wad of blood onto the ground. Everywhere hurt, and I think I'd need to get some stitches on my ass after this from the broken glass I'd fallen on. "Fine, I'd hate to have to die to a girl anyways."

The krogan gave a bellied laugh and wiped a tear from his one good eye. "You do have a quad, Spectre, that much I'll give you."

"Oh, come on!" Cade groaned. "That's it? Lame!"

Percival cuffed the turian on the back of his fringe. "Cade, shut it!" he hissed.

I tensed up involuntarily as the krogan marched towards me and I could feel the entire bar tense up too, but I relaxed as he brushed past me to pick up the Geth Spitfire he'd set down upon entering the bar and clipped it to his back.

The old krogan turned back towards me, his one good eye glinting promisingly while his dead one sat lifelessly in its socket.

"Maybe you'll be good for my little girl after all. But if you hurt my daughter, I promise you I'll rip it out and shove it up your pyjack ass. Then I'll reach down into your throat and shake your hand," he grumbled.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I spat, confused.

The krogan didn't deign to answer. Instead he shoved open the door and turned to leave, but before he did he looked at me one last time. He raised a meaty arm and jabbed an armored finger in my chest.

"Don't you break Camilla's heart, Cade," he said before he stomped out of the ruined bar.

As one, my friends, then the whole bar all looked at the turian. Percival wearily buried his face in one hand while Elektra glanced between Cade and I in utter confusion, her mouth utterly agape. The grin had evaporated from Cade's face and his mouth was slightly open in abject surprise. The red recording light on his omni-tool continued to blink stubbornly.

I glared angrily at my friend and sighed. God fucking damn it.


	25. Chapter 25 - To Infinity and Beyond

**Chapter 25 – To Infinity and Beyond**

* * *

 _AN - Law School is a high-maintenance girlfriend, but let it never be said that I started something I wasn't willing to finish._

* * *

 _March 10_ _th_ _, 2211 – The Citadel, Presidium – Percival Residence_

 _Six weeks after the events of the SSV Hippocrates_

It smelled delicious in here. A freshly-baked apple crumble pie sat cooling on the polysteel counter while a smaller, dextro-version one sat beside it. A huge pot of homemade pasta sauce sat on the stove, a pile of spaghetti in a large serving bowl some distance away and a pan of assorted vegetables currently cooking in the oven. In addition, Gwen had roasted a _skirt'lana_ – the Palaven equivalent to Earth's fowl – for Cade. For us humans she had prepared a massive, roast chicken.

I leaned casually against the countertop, lost in thought, my arms folded a bit lower down my chest than usual thanks to the swathe of painful bruises that the krogan had left there yesterday.

A piercing shriek of laughter and the sound of rapid footsteps snapped my head back up and I watched as a small, blond-haired child launch herself into the arms of my scaly friend.

"Spirits, you're so big now!" Cade groaned.

The giggling four-year old in his arms laughed and tried to grab my friend's mandibles. Cade drew his head back and playfully snapped at her, which only served to incite the young child even further. Little Helen Percival hadn't seen her uncle Cade in nearly eight months and was determined to make up for lost time.

Another set of rapid footsteps, heavier and more insistent. "She's grown nearly four centimeters! I helped mommy record it!" boasted Tristan.

Percival's oldest child tugged at Cade's forearm and tried to redirect some of the attention Cade had been giving his sister back towards himself. He was a tiny carbon copy of his father, big for his size with the same blond hair and blue eyes. His sister however shared their mother's softer facial features, but otherwise had near identical hair and eyes.

Cade's mandibles flew open in mock alarm. "Four centimeters!" he gasped. "And what about you? How much have you grown?"

"Six," the six-year old boy said proudly. "I'm going to catch up to you and uncle Cloud by the end of the year, so you two geezers better watch your backs."

The child grinned cheekily my way and I snorted and pushed myself off the counter. I walked towards him and ruffled his hair.

"Won't be hard. Cade's always on his knees," I shrugged.

I moved to the fridge to grab another beer as both of the Percival children laughed at their turian uncle. Cade shot me a pointed look at my jab and I flipped him off light smile, eliciting another wave of laughter from the two young children. Percival and Gwen didn't allow any profane hand gestures, which naturally meant that both children loved watching us do them.

"Can I show you my new stuffed animal that daddy got me, uncle Cade?" asked little Helen. The blond-haired girl gave Cade her best puppy-dog eyes, not that her favourite turian uncle would have said no anyways.

"I'd love to," Cade replied. His eyes darted between Percival's daughter and the dextro-apple pie still cooling on the counter and for a moment I could see his inner angels waging war against his hungry demons. I couldn't blame him though, Gwen could bake with the best of them.

"And come see my new action figure!" chimed Tristan. The young boy grabbed Cade by the hand and dragged him towards their bedrooms. Cade shot me a pleading look but I merely shrugged smugly and sipped my beer. Unfortunately for Cade, he'd established himself early on as the affectionate, caring uncle. It was a role he enjoyed and was well suited for, but at times such as these it did serve as a barrier between him and his life-long dream of being the first ever turian diabetic.

I stood in silence in the living room as the two Percival children dragged their uncle around, tugging at his scales and picking at his freshly-applied dark-blue facepaint. For a moment I wondered what the brats would think of their favourite uncle if they could see him booster-jetting onto some poor slaver's back and jamming his knife in the back of his neck. They'd probably like him even more.

I'd seen John again this morning after setting up a university fund and handling the next twelve-months of rent for his grandparents. I had a nice talk with both Tanya and Viktor Connor and had politely convinced them to accept my charity, then had a quiet chat with John. We didn't talk much, but he had smiled when he saw me. It was a start.

The opening of the front door jolted me back. Guinevere walked in with a small, pink cardboard box. I quickly set my beer down on a coaster and moved to assist her.

"Here, let me take that for you," I said, my hands reaching out to take the box.

"Thanks!" she smiled. She took off her shoes and moved to check the pasta sauce as I placed the small birthday cake in the fridge.

"How are the kids?" Gwen asked over her shoulder.

"Cade's got' em," I shrugged, "and Percival's changing Anna right now."

Gwen stirred the pot of sauce, then added a few more herbs and stirred some more. "It's a shame Camilla couldn't come, Cade's been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about her, I would have loved to meet her."

"He's kind of in the doghouse right now, something about letting his best friend get his ass beaten by her angry father and recording it rather than stepping in and taking the blame," I scoffed.

"First of all," cried a flanged, indignant voice, "You're the one who wanted to fight him. Second of all, he was a goddamn _krogan_ , how was I supposed to guess that Camilla, a _human,_ was his daughter?"

Cade came back in with a kid in each arm. Both of them had their arms wrapped around their turian uncle and were snickering quietly at me. Cade had told them about my fight with the krogan nearly a dozen times since yesterday and they loved it more and more each time he told it. When Helen poked my bruises in the chest and Tristan asked if I'd be calling the krogan "daddy" I had very nearly cried. Kids were savage.

"Lastly," Cade finished, "you're the one with the wide spectrum of fetishes. Maybe if it had been an angry human father you could have pointed a finger at me, but a krogan? That's on you buddy."

"Cade!" Guinevere admonished. "They're kids!"

Both Tristan and Helen giggled and looked up at their uncle. Cade scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Gwen, they don't even know what fetish means!" he exclaimed. He looked to Percival's daughter and asked her, "Helen, what's a fetish?"

Helen pursed her lips and tapped a tiny finger on her chin. "I dunno, some kind of puppy? What's a spec-trum?"

"It's something your uncle Cade is most certainly on, according to several psychiatrists," I said quietly. Cade shot me a dirty look while Gwen let out a light laugh. The kids didn't laugh, but they would soon in a couple of years. In a couple of years I'd be the favourite uncle.

"Does it have to do with aliens?" Tristan chimed in. Cade gave me a pointed look and Gwen blushed. Technically, I guess, but I wasn't about to explain it to him.

Before Cade could make another jab, Percival finally walked into the room carrying a cooing, smiling Anna, his youngest daughter. The last time he'd seen her prior to our return was nearly seven months ago, he'd spent nearly every waking moment with her since we'd arrived back on the Citadel. She'd be turning a year old today.

Cade set down his two kids who immediately bolted towards their father. They grabbed onto his legs and hung on laughing as Percival walked up to his wife and kissed her lightly on the cheek, as if the extra weight was nothing.

"How'd the cake retrieval go?"

"Perfectly," she replied.

Gwen smiled and took Anna from my friend's arms while Percival swapped stations with her, gently stirring the sauce. He tried a bit and smacked his lips together in satisfaction at his wife's cooking. When we were on missions we tended to subsist on Alliance standard ration packs. If we were lucky, sometimes the ship's mess sergeant would serve something relatively palatable.

"Honey, have I ever told you how much I love your cooking?" Percival sighed. He shooed away his two kids with a smile and hovered over the roast chicken, who was looking more and more like his undeniable one true love.

"Yes, repeatedly," Gwen laughed. "The sauce is done, you can start setting the table if you'd like."

Percival immediately grabbed the roast chicken then jerked his head at me and then towards the large bowl of spaghetti. I took his cue and grabbed it. As soon as the chicken hit the table he pivoted and retrieved the vegetables as I manhandled the pot of sauce onto a large coaster.

Meanwhile Cade handed plates and cutlery to the two Percival children and directed the two trainees to set the table. He grabbed the roast _skirt'lana_ and covered the rear. Within half a minute of Gwen's directive, the entire table had been set and we could start dinner.

Dinner was saccharine, as it always was when we had dinner with the Percival's. Cade chatted non-stop with the kids, answering Tristan's questions about guns and armor and turian naval marines while conversing with Helen about how to deal with some girls who had been stealing her markers in pre-school. Occasionally Percival or Gwen would make a comment and the flow of conversation would shift briefly, but otherwise the chatter was light and wholesome.

I answered a couple of questions directed my way and made a few comments too, but otherwise kept to my food. Gwen really could cook, and as a biotic I could enjoy extra portions without fretting too much over ruining my physique. But nonetheless, even after all these years dinner with the Percival's still felt like an alien affair. It was nothing like the dinners we'd have at the shelter.

Anna kept her eyes trained on me as I ate, smiling and gurgling softly as babies are oft to do. Occasionally she'd direct her attention to Gwen when she'd spoon some food into her mouth or at her father when Percival would laugh boisterously at a joke Cade would made, but otherwise she would mostly look at me. I wasn't really big on making goofy faces but I did try my best. She laughed happily at my attempts nonetheless.

Finally the food was gone, Percival having consumed probably half of the entire roast chicken and a third of the spaghetti and sauce. Cade was making eyes at the pie and both the kids had started chanting for dessert. I helped Gwen bring the pies to the table while she took the cake out of the fridge.

Percival picked up his laughing baby daughter and bounced her lightly in his arms before kissing her atop her head. "Happy birthday, Anna!" he said tenderly.

And as one we all fully embraced a tradition dating back nearly four hundred years. Cade opened up first, his flanging voice giving the familiar melody a surprisingly aesthetic sound. Both Tristan and Helen did their best, even if they were about half an octave off. Percival and Gwen went for bass and tenor respectively while I quietly did my best not to sound terribly off-key.

Anna Percival looked widely around the room as her entire family sang Happy Birthday to her and at the awesome birthday cake in front of her. I ran to set up an omni-camera on a timer so that it could snap a few pictures. I got back just in time to stand beside Cade before the camera went off, capturing this moment for all eternity. Like every single birthday that occurred in the Percival household, the picture would go in the family scrapbook, alongside a few hand-written messages from each of the attendees.

And there's not much else to tell. Cade finished the entire dextro-pie and grumbled about how the cake wasn't dextro. Gwen apologized and told him that when it was his birthday they'd make sure to get him one. Both of the Percival children grew more and more manic as they ingested more and more sugar, but for once Percival was willing to let it slide in light of the occasion. My friend fed his baby daughter a few bites of cake while Gwen moved to snap a few more pictures from different angles.

I had both pie and cake, although I was definitely more of a pie guy.

You know, I can't count the number of video games, holo-films, and e-books that have been written about us Spectres but I can tell you that in ninety-nine percent of them it's always about us taking down a rogue krogan warlord, or eliminating a terrorist cell, or blowing up a secret hideout of some criminal mastermind.

They never really tell you the little things, the things that make us seem like people. The little things between missions, like a Spectre getting to go home to celebrate his daughters first birthday, or a Spectre going to the bar and getting his ass kicked by _another_ Spectres' girlfriend's angry father. Sometimes it's nice to remember that we were more than living weapons resigned to going around completing suicide mission after suicide mission. It was the in-between that mattered, that made going on those missions more meaningful.

Six weeks ago I shot a deranged Systems Alliance officer in the head, stabbed a psychotic red-headed doctor through the heart, discovered a secret plot to convert the galaxy into homicidal, half-synthetic monsters, and fought a ship's worth of said creatures.

Today, I had dinner with the only people in this galaxy that I considered family.

If you ask me which story I'd rather the historians write about me one day, well, they better make sure they got down the cake-pie thing correctly.

* * *

 _March 11_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Presidium, The Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance— Main Briefing Room_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

"—And look, there's Vako and T'alis, and spirits, they even recalled Williams!" Cade hissed at us as more and more of our fellow Spectres entered the massive, auditorium-like briefing room.

Designed to seat three hundred, less than a third of the seats were currently filled with our fellow Spectre Operatives, some of which we hadn't seen in years.

Even more weren't present. Almost two-thirds of us were on missions in distant systems and were therefore too far away to be recalled to attend this briefing in person. Most of those that couldn't make it were still present, however, as each seat was actually a Quantum Entanglement Communicator. Those on missions and had access to one could still therefore attend in a loose, physical sense.

It made it look as if half the operatives in this room were ghosts.

I turned to Percival seated beside me and nudged him. "Do you think they're going to disclose the Hippocrates situation?" I asked quietly.

My friend shook his head and whispered back. "To be honest, I don't think so. Whatever this is about, it's something that's already got the whole of the Systems Alliance High Command andArcturus Station on edge. One of my contacts told me that they've re-assembled first, second, and fifth fleet in the Terra Nova system. If this was about the Reaper Cores they would be deploying directly, not wasting time re-assembling."

Lanto and Corribus entered the room next, we made eye contact and nodded at each other. They were followed by the familiar figure of Elektra. Her familiar flirtatious smirk was gone and in its place was a mask of professionalism and ice. I couldn't help but notice her make-up was still impeccable done and her long, brown hair looked like she'd just had it professionally braided.

She took the seat beside me and nodded at the three of us. "Boys," she greeted.

"Elektra," Percival and I returned.

"Bitch," Cade muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

To her credit she said nothing. Instead she crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands in her lap.

She leaned in towards me. I couldn't also help but notice that Elektra had somehow decided to wear perfume to an important briefing.

"Is this about the Hippocrates?" she whispered.

"Percival doesn't seem to think so," I shrugged. "His contacts think it's something else. Anything on your end?"

"Nope," she shrugged, "they haven't said anything. Percival must have intel coming in from somewhere higher."

The number of Spectres entering and appearing on QEC's slowly started to dwindle. Just under a third of the three-hundred seats had Spectres physically in them and another third had Spectres sitting in via QEC. The other hundred-odd seats were empty – most likely their operatives were currently engaged in extreme covert operations but there was the possibility that there had been a few KIA's in the last few months.

The councilors appeared next on-stage using their familiar hologram systems. First Tevos, then Victus, followed by Jath and finally Lanllivan. Every Spectre Operative in the room immediately ceased their quiet chatting and directed their attention to the stage. A sudden hush swept over the room. No one could remember the last time all of us had been recalled for a mass briefing. It was probably also during the Reaper Wars.

Each of the four had guarded expressions on their face, but that only served to tell more than it hid. Lanllivan looked the worst, even from here I could see that subtle tightening of the jaw, the corners of her mouth pulled unnaturally down into the slightest of grimaces. Something was definitely eating at her.

Elektra nudged me and pointed discreetly at the salarian councilor. I followed her finger and watched her. Jath had never been much of a smiler in the first place. Sure, her mouth seemed to be drawn more tightly than usual, but what exactly was it that had caught Elektra's eye?

There. Jath turned to whisper something to councilor Victus and in that movement her robes were drawn more closely to her sides, allowing us to briefly glimpse the outline of a hard, oblong device strapped to her hip. Councilor Radal Jath was packing heat.

Tevos looked as serene as ever, but that wasn't surprising considering she'd had centuries to perfect her expressions _and_ she had presided over the single-most devastating conflict in the last fifty-thousand years. Finally, I couldn't help but notice that Victus was subtly meeting the eyes of each of the turian Spectres.

Since the asari were the first to find the Citadel and establish the Citadel Council, councilor Tevos opened first as was custom.

She spread her arms. "Spectres, you are the right hand of the Citadel, the first line and last line of defense," Tevos began.

"We have called each and every last one of you here today, barring those on the distant-most fields of battle and on missions of utmost secrecy, because of a development so unsettling that all four of us voted unanimously to hold this session with all of you in attendance."

Cade crossed his arms and grumbled beside me, like me he was probably frustrated at the theatrics. "I appreciate the show but it'd be nice if you could hurry this along…" he whispered to no one in particular.

"Is that the title of your sex-tape?" Elektra smirked.

The turian eyed her angrily and was likely just about to make a sexist, profane rejoinder but both Percival and I dug our elbows into his scaly sides. I gave Elektra an admonishing look and she shrugged, smiling.

That smile disappeared instantly the moment Lanllivan decided to cut the shit and drop the bomb on us.

"Spectres, a mass defection has occurred. The Ninth fleet of the Systems Alliance Navy is gone," Lanllivan told us.

A wave of hushed whispers washed over the room as Spectres immediately began chatting quietly to each other.

Elektra and I both looked to Percival. His face was a mask of shock.

"Hey, slaps, snap out of it!" hissed Cade. The turian grabbed the big man's arm and shook him gently.

"Order!" bellowed councilor Victus. Immediately the noise began to die down. I clenched my fists tightly, how on Earth could a whole _fleet_ be allowed to disappear. The Ninth Fleet had more than four hundred ships. How could an entire fleet be convinced to defect?

A picture of a man popped up on the holo-screen behind the councilors. He had short, brown hair, was clean-shaven and looked to be in his early to mid-fifties. His dark eyes were cold and calculating and he looked to be of average height and build.

His CSV popped up beside him. Enlisted in the Systems Alliance Navy at 18, made Lieutenant-Commander at the age of 27 and was given his first command soon after aboard the SSV Florence in the Fifth fleet under Admiral Steven Hackett. He served with distinction in the Reaper War and was bumped to Rear Admiral some time after. When they formed the Ninth Fleet in 2293, Hackett backed him for Fleet Admiral. His fleet apparently covered themselves with commendation after commendation for their actions during the Slaver Fringe Wars and in a series of border skirmishes with pirates in the Terminus Systems.

"This is Fleet Admiral Marcus Octavian, commander of the Ninth Fleet. The Ninth Fleet was supposed to assemble in the Utopia System for fleet-wide maneuvers and drills two days ago, but only a handful of Ninth Fleet cruisers and their frigate wolf-packs showed up," Lanllivan continued.

"When they were unresponsive to hails, Joint Air, Extravehicular, and Ground Recovery Specialists were sent to board the vessels. Inside they found crews from dozens of different ships in the Ninth Fleet chained and manacled. All of them told the same story – the rest of their crewmates had decided to follow Admiral Marcus Octavian on some secret mission, striking down their Alliance flags."

Statistics went up on the holo-screen. Nearly 90% of the Fleet had defected. It was crazy. It had to have had something to do with the Hippocrates. Nearly all the saboteurs had been humans who'd been serving in the Systems Alliance. This couldn't be a coincidence.

Nonetheless, how did Octavian convince more than ten thousand Systems Alliance personnel to leave with him? Were they all in the same gang as the saboteurs or something? Did all of them believe in the same fucked-up kool-aid that they called transcendence?

"Didn't you serve under Octavian, Percival?" Cade whispered to the former N7.

I had forgotten about that. Percival had been attached to the Ninth Fleet before joining the Spectres. Both Elektra and I looked at him curiously.

His face was a mask of shock and surprise and disbelief. Octavian was beloved of his men – Percival included. Steven Hackett himself had backed him for Fleet Admiral, half the Systems Alliance Navy High Command thought he'd make Chief of Naval Operations within the next decade, and he'd proved himself in conflicts again and again.

"I did," he shakily replied. "He was the best officer I ever served under, I can't believe he'd defect. He was absolutely committed to his men and to the Systems Alliance. Every single sailor under his command would have happily died for him if he'd asked them to, how could this have happened?"

"Maybe we should start calling the stock bad guys 'defectors' instead of 'saboteurs' from now on," Elektra dryly added.

Percival didn't reply. Instead he starred off into space. I could see a similar look of shock on several other currently-serving human Spectres who had formerly been a part of the Systems Alliance Military. Williams in particular looked noticeably distraught.

Councilor Jath coughed and addressed us next. "There's more, Spectres. Dozens of ships from each of the salarian fleets have also absconded. They've deactivated their trackers and are refusing all hails, but they too removed the dissenters and had them sent back to us before defecting. None of the Salarian Naval Personnel we picked up have any idea why they have decided to do so. STG is currently investigating."

"Asari ships have departed as well, dozens of ships from each of the fleets as well as several commando detachments. Asari High Command is scrambling internal affairs to investigate," Tevos added.

Victus raised his head and flapped his mandibles. "Turian fleets remain wholly intact," he assured us, "but that doesn't mean we do not have defectors present among our ranks. And if the Krogan Federation, the Batarian Hegemony, and the Quarian and Geth Collective have lost ships as well, they have yet to notify us."

A hand shot up among one of the Spectres, it was Spectre Operative Leliana T'sarion.

"Councilors, is there no lead to suggest why so many ships from the navies of three of the four Council species suddenly decided to defect? None of our contacts have reported anything in the last decade that would hint at an internal schism of this magnitude."

I tensed up. Beside me Cade dug his talons into the chair and Elektra swallowed softly.

The councilors looked amongst themselves then turned as one to address the senior Spectre.

"No, Operative T'sarion. This is as much a mystery to us as it is to you," Tevos replied sadly.

"That brings us to our final point. We need to know why they left, where they went, and who else might still follow," Victus ordered loudly. The former turian general and Primarch still had his battlefield-voice primed and prepped even after all these years, the flanging inflection that our universal e-translators gave every turian only added to the command and severity behind it.

"For those of you not currently on mission, you will be tasked with investigating the remaining fleets and their officers, as well as their associated command structures. _Do not_ work with their internal affairs and _do not_ utilize military contacts and personnel. At this point we do not know who we can trust and who we can't."

"This is a top priority directive," Jath finished. "There are nearly five hundred ships unaccounted for, including three dreadnaughts. If unchecked, they could wreak untold havoc on the galaxy."

I swallowed. A dreadnaught could lay waste to a whole colony in a matter of minutes if it chose, its mass accelerator cannon and its Thanix cannon could destroy whole major cities in a single shot. For three of them to go rogue? I shuddered at the thought.

Tevos spread her arms once more in preparation to deliver her customary closing statement. "Remember, you are our first and last line of defense, the right arm of the Council and the guardians of the galaxy. You have your mission, Spectres. Good Luck."

Percival, Cade, Elektra and I all exchanged glances with each other. Our mission – the mission to stop the Reaper Cores and galactic genocide – just got a whole lot more complicated.

* * *

 _March 11_ _th_ _, 2211. The Citadel, Citadel Tower – Council's Private Meeting Chambers_

 _Six weeks after the events aboard the SSV Hippocrates_

"Thank you for your patience, Spectres. The news of the mass defection caught us all off-guard," Tevos apologized to us.

We stood haphazardly around the briefing room that we had been in only days before. The four councilors looked even more haggard and worn-down that they had been merely an hour before, when they broke the news that nearly five hundred ships had gone missing from among our various militaries.

Percival was as rigid as a board, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. I stood in a similar pose beside the large marine, albeit looking much less tense. Cade had his arms crossed beside me and Electra stood further back, eyes forward.

Jath tapped on her omni-tool and the hologram of a planet popped up on the holo-table. Several cities popped up on its surface – Cairo, Osiris, Set, and New Thebes. It had to be Anhur.

"This is the garden world of Anhur, located in the Eagle Nebula, in the Amun System, one of the most populated colonies in the Terminus Systems," she started to explain. "Four days ago, an STG recon team picked up this partial transmission from Anhur's generator facilities planetside."

She pressed another button and a recording began to play. The voice on it was unmistakably male, human if I had to guess. What was most unsettling is the sheer amount of fear I could hear in the man's voice. Whoever this individual had been, he'd been terrified.

" _This is Operations Chief Simon Merryweather, currently stationed at the Anhur Planetary Defense Cannon Generators! We're under attack by what appears to be a group of—"_

The recording cut off after that.

I immediately raised my hand. "Councilor, the recording mentions a group. Could it be a known terrorist cell or a mercenary, or even a paramilitary group?"

Jath shook her head and brought up picture taken from a recon probe. I could see dozens of ships, most of them with the profile of Systems Alliance Navy vessels, as well as a few of salarian and asari design. So part of the Ninth Fleet must be involved.

"The STG recon team stayed for two days to gather as much intelligence as they could before they were discovered. They managed to send a comm. buoy with the encrypted data through the mass relay before they were found and shot down. All hands aboard were presumed lost," Jath said grimly.

We all cursed. The STG were our predecessors in a sense, and every Spectre respected them and their influence on our roots. They were the organization we had originally been modelled off of.

"Look here, Spectres," Lanllivan continued. She pressed a button and zoomed in onto one of the ships. The image of a familiar, gunmetal grey cruiser enhanced itself on the table. The words _Exeter_ could be clearly seen on the side of the cruiser.

"If your reports are correct, the saboteurs are there, although for what reason we currently do not know. If this is an attempt to make progress on this "transcendence", then they must be stopped. We've confirmed some of the names of the other vessels present at Anhur, it appears to be the Ninth Fleet, specifically the first, second and third battlegroups," the human councilor finished.

"The asari and salarian vessels are also confirmed to be those that defected," Tevos added.

"But that can't be all the ships," Elektra pointed out. "That's a fraction of those reported to have defected, any idea where the rest of them went?"

Victus shook his head. "We do not have a clue, hopefully your fellow Spectres will turn up something in your investigations, something that the saboteurs missed or neglected to cover up."

Percival raised his hand. The former N7 had been uncharacteristically quiet and morose for the last little while. "What would you have us do?" he asked.

Councilor Victus turned to Percival and answered him. "Go and investigate. Follow the trail, find out what you can, and do your best to stop these saboteurs and their heinous goal."

"Will we have back-up?" Elektra asked.

The turian councilor ruefully shook his head and sighed. "We cannot send a Council Fleet or a military expedition in force to the Amun System, the Terminus Systems would view it as an act of war. Additionally, seeing as one of the lead saboteurs is a former N7 and another is a former high-ranking member of the STG, neither can we rely on special forces to provide support."

Tevos cleared her throat and looked at us apologetically. "Your fellow Spectres will have their hands full ensuring that the remainder of our military forces are uncompromised. Additionally, your knowledge of the Reaper Cores and the events aboard the Hippocrates make you the closest thing we have to experts on the saboteurs plans and goals. We have no one else to send."

Cade and I both grinned at each other. This was what we lived for, other than sugar. A few good weapons, a target-rich environment, zero jurisdiction and oversight, and nothing but bad guys between us and saving the galaxy.

"Nonetheless we are working on this resolving issue," Tevos assured us. "But even then, the STG recon group reported Anhur's planetary defense cannons are still online under the control of the saboteurs and would make an orbital assault absolutely perilous. In addition, there is a total communications blackout on the planet, they have control of the communications satellites and so we have no idea if they've occupied major population centers or whether or not they're merely blockading the planet."

Victus slammed a fist on his console, startling us. "There is too much we don't know, Spectres!" Victus spat. "And we can't trust anyone else! But a small strike force in a stealth-capable frigate can land, take down the generators, re-establish communications and perhaps stop whatever these fanatics are planning."

"It will be a dangerous mission," Tevos finished. "Once again, we are asking you to willingly put yourselves once more in the line of fire."

I internally rolled my eyes, it was cute how sometimes Tevos pretended that we sometimes had a choice when it came to missions like these. We didn't, and not because they were our orders, but because it had to be done, by someone, anyone.

"When do we leave?" I asked.

* * *

 _March 11_ _th_ _, 2211 – The Citadel, Zakera Ward – Arm's Edge_

 _Four days after the taking of Anhur_

I sighed and took a deep breath, savoring the familiar scent of the lower wards behind me in all of its wild, lawless glory. My legs dangled off of the sheer metal wall that I was currently sitting on. In front of me was nothing but the beautiful Serpent Nebula, awash in a sea of bright lights and colors.

I could see breathtaking swirls of blue and purple and white – color given off by light reflecting off of the non-recyclable debris that was constantly being ejected from the Citadel, if you would believe the rumors. If I squinted I could barely make out the familiar forms of several of the Mass Relays that led in and out of the Serpent Nebula.

If I were to somehow leap around three meters out, I'd find myself out of the mass effect barriers that encapsulated the Citadel and allowed it to maintain a breathable and livable atmosphere, floating in the Nebula itself where I'd probably suffocate and die in less than a minute. Definitely breathtaking.

This was my favourite spot on the entire Citadel. You take the elevator down from the Presidium to the Wards and then you just keep heading what everyone arbitrarily considers to be 'south'. But do take a car, because otherwise it'd be a long walk. Forty-four point-seven kilometers actually.

Eventually you'd hit the very end of the arms that comprised the Wards. There'd be a smooth, metal wall about three meters tall and about ten meters thick that was ridiculously easy to climb with the right equipment, and from there you could sit, stand, or lie down at the edge of the wall and just stare out into the Serpent Nebula.

It was actually not a well-kept secret. Colloquially known as the 'Arm's Edge', there was technically one on each of the four wards. They were ridiculously popular spots for suicides, gang executions, and "accidents", or dispute settlements as we liked to call them. Usually C-sec did a good job patrolling the Arm's Edge, but when you were a talented Spectre it wasn't exactly rocket science to slip past a couple of beat-cops watching a holo-vid on their omni-tools.

It was where I went when I either wanted to be alone or when I was about to go on another mission. It was somewhere where I could just sit or lie there and just stare out into the Serpent Nebula and think, to be alone with my thoughts. The Serenity was nice but almost always crowded, and the Citadel itself had very few places where you could truly be alone.

I stared at the shifting sea of blue, purple and white and sighed blissfully, savoring the sight and the peace that it brought me. A part of me wondered if Sarah had ever been this far south. Maybe I'd take John here one day when he was old enough to need a place where he could just get away from it all. His own little fortress of solitude.

And yeah, if you're wondering, I have pissed off of it. Multiple times. It was like pissing off the edge of the world.

The sound of bickering interrupted my reverie and I rolled my eyes. "Spirits, can you move your ass?" A flanged, familiar voice complained behind me.

"You made me hold everything, Kitiarian. Maybe if you weren't such a lazy bird I'd be able to climb this damn wall faster," another familiar voice argued back.

"That is speciesism and racism, slaps, and I expected better from a revered member of the Systems Alliance military and the famed Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

I bit back a smile as Cade pulled Percival up over the lip of the wall. Cade was dressed in his usual hoodie, turian sweatpants and band T-shirt while Percival had opted for a light-blue dress-shirt paired with dark dress pants and a pair of brown _loafers_. Sometimes I wondered if he'd ever been bullied as a child.

He also carried a cooler in one hand, which explained the trouble he was having climbing up the wall. You needed to use magnetic clamps, which every Spectre had a pair of. A good pair was only a couple-hundred credits on the extranet.

They slid down to sit beside me and Percival opened up the cooler. He took out a large sushi platter, a grease-covered bag, a small pizza box, a box of half-dozen donuts, and a small apple pie in a pink cardboard box.

Cade took out a set of plates and forks and we began to serve food onto our plates.

"God, Ryuusei makes the best dragon rolls," Percival mumbled through a mouthful of avocado, fried shrimp and rice.

That was true. Good, traditional sushi was hard to come by on the Citadel. Many of the sushi restaurants in the lower wards usually used fish from different planets, but Ryuusei always claimed to make their food with Earth-grown tuna, salmon, and the like. Technically a dragon roll wasn't traditional sushi, but I was willing to let that slide.

I grimaced as Percival followed up his mouthful of sushi with a bite from one of the burgers from the Serenity. Although Percival's diet was clean as hell ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, when we had our traditional pre-mission cheat meals he always went balls to the wall.

By the time I had taken my first bite, he had already set his burger down and had started in on a slice of pizza.

I picked at my own sushi. "How long do you reckon this next mission will take?" I asked.

Cade on the flipside had started with his share of the donuts, wolfing both of them down before starting in on the burger. He liked to go sweet, salty, sweet during our cheat meals. Fucked up in my opinion, but who was I to judge. The turian was an absolute madman.

"It'll take three relay jumps to get to the Amun System. No idea when we'll be ordered to leave, but I'd say we can expect our departure to occur within the next three days," Cade shrugged. "After that, it depends on how many saboteurs we go through."

I swallowed the last of my sushi, savoring it, then took a page from Percival's book, starting the burger next. It was delicious – synthetic beef and bacon more succulent than anything you'd ever tasted, topped with crisp lettuce, cheese, and fried onions. I also liked it a bit heavy on the ketchup and mustard, but I didn't like pickles in it.

"Several dozen enemy ships though, and against trained human marines, asari commandos, salarian tech specialists, and what-not. It'll be a hard fight," I pointed out after I'd finished chewing and had swallowed.

"Since when have you ever been scared to fight?" smirked Cade. "You think we can't handle a bunch of crazy human marines and a few pretentious asari commandos?"

"Yeah," Percival jumped in through a mouthful of sushi and pizza. "We all watched the combat logs dude, your saboteur kill-count is higher than both of ours combined, times two."

"God, chew your food man!" I said, disgusted. Percival shrugged sheepishly and went back to his sushi/pizza medley.

"We'll also probably have back-up," added Cade. "There's no way the Council would expect us to re-take an entire system of planetary defense cannons, a whole satellite network, and an entire occupied colony with just a frigate's worth of operatives. Who do they think we are? Commander Shepard?"

We all laughed at that. The stories we heard during the war had seemed too far-fetched, too impossible to be real. Shepard single-handedly taking down a _Reaper_ on foot, Shepard and two squadmates taking on an entire _Geth Dreadnought_ ,Shepard gunning down whole platoons of Cerberus soldiers and raiding huge Cerberus facilities and generally slapping a whole galaxy's worth of bad guys around with just a three-man team.

I get that she was a larger-than-life figure who did some crazy shit, but come on. There had to be some embellishment there – propaganda to embolden those who had fought in the Reaper War, to give them a real hero to rally behind. If anything, it was probably Garrus Vakarian who did all the heavy lifting in combat. From the things I'd read and watched on the extranet, that dude fucks.

"Man, it'll be weird having Elektra tag along," Percival sighed. "When was the last time we worked with another Spectre?"

"More than two years ago," replied Cade. "The riots on Lusia, and don't forget Korlus. Williams worked over that outpost while we went after that warlord in his fortress."

Fucking Korlus.

"Honestly," continued the turian, "Can we even trust her? Look what she did to Cloud, and how sure are the councilors that the saboteurs don't have anyone in the Spectres?"

"It is possible," Percival admitted. "The fact that she pushed hard to be put on the mission is already suspect."

Cade nodded in agreement, but I shook my head.

"No, Elektra is a lot of things, but a fanatic isn't one of them. Cade, I know she fucked me over in the past, and Percival, it _is_ possible that there is a mole in the Spectres, but I don't think its Elektra. I've known her for a long, long time. Siding with these people isn't something that she'd do," I said.

Even though I disliked her and barely trust her, I didn't believe that she was a traitor. I had known her for most of my life and despite what we'd gone through together I knew that she simply wasn't capable of partaking in something as insane as what the saboteurs were involved in. I remember the girl who I'd first met on Terra Nova so many years ago and I knew the women she had become. It just couldn't be possible.

My friends didn't press the topic any further, for which I was thankful. They took my words at face value and trusted my judgement. For a while we simply ate, enjoyed the view of the Serpent Nebula, and talked about whatever came to our minds – galaxy of fantasy, Percival's daughter, Sarah's son, and our past missions.

Eventually all the food was gone, even the cake. Percival was splayed out on his back, groaning in pain. Serves him right, he probably had as much of the food as Cade and I had combined.

Cade grinned sadistically and pulled a six-pack of beer and two bottles of liquor out of the cooler, alongside a trio of glasses.

"Up and at 'em, slaps. It ain't over just yet," he laughed. Beside him Percival pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and groaned even louder.

"I can't, just kill me. Roll me off the edge so I can float in space like the gas giant I've become," he begged.

"You know, we always tell you to leave room for the liquor but you never listen," I said in a chastising tone. "I thought you'd have learned your lesson by now."

"Besides," Cade chimed in happily. "Who knows if we'll ever get a chance to do this again. One of us might die on the next mission."

"Shut your bird mouth, you bird!" Percival shouted eloquently. With a groan he pulled himself up to a seated position. Cade poured a few fingers of liquor into our glasses and handed one to each of us before pouring some dextro brandy for himself.

Beer cans were opened and set down beside us as we all raised our glasses.

I remember all those years ago. Before my first ever mission I had come up here to try and calm myself down. I remembered how nervous I was, how anxious I'd been that I'd die—or worse, fail.

My first mission had been a resounding success, but when it was time for my second one I didn't feel any more confident or prepared than I had my first one.

When I came up here the night before my second mission, I found Percival and Cade with some beer and half a pizza. When I came up here the night before my third, they'd been waiting with liquor and some sushi. On nights before missions when we weren't on the Citadel, we'd always share a toast, talk a bit, and just try and share one last moment together, in case it was actually our last.

Stop me if it all sounds too lame.

"Here's to a successful mission," Percival began.

"And to a dozen more," Cade continued.

"And to a hundred more," I continued on.

"And to making the galaxy a better place," we all chorused. We clinked our glasses together and drained them. No matter what awaited us on Anhur, I knew that as long as we were together, nothing could stop us.


	26. Chapter 26 - Heroes

**Chapter 26 – Heroes**

* * *

 _ **The story thus far…**_

 _Twenty-five years after the Reaper War, a trio of Spectres board a ship on a mission from the Council. Following the activation of the Crucible, something spread on Earth, making it sick and uninhabitable and rendering most of it into a gray wasteland. Thessia then began to show the same signs and symptoms. As a result, the galaxy began to study leftover Reaper Tech in the hopes of finding an answer. The Systems Alliance conducted most of this research aboard their R &D vessel known as the SSV Hippocrates. The Spectres were sent to oversee the re-activation of a derelict Reaper core._

 _Things quickly go wrong, critical systems around the ship fail._ _Unlike the events of dead space,_ _the activated core begins changing the crew into synthetic-organic creatures with the ability to change other organic beings into creatures like them. These creatures begin killing and converting the crew. The Spectres quickly team up with the ships survivors, including a doctor named Sarah Messner. Together they set out to find out how these creatures are made and to fix the ship._

 _They soon discover that the ship and the core was sabotaged by a group of saboteurs led by former N7 Thomas Locke. They reveal that these events were orchestrated to bring about something called transcendence. The Spectres believe that the saboteurs intend to convert everyone in the galaxy into these creatures. The saboteurs and the Spectres clash, and Sarah is killed by the actions of a particularly insane saboteur known as Olivia._

 _The Spectres are given a video by the insane saboteur. They play it to reveal startling information. Many of the Reaper Cores were made with a species that possessed DNA capable of infecting other creatures and converting them. Once the Crucible had been activated in the previous war, the Reaper DNA that kept this infectious DNA in check was deactivated, allowing this infectious DNA to begin to replicate and infect new hosts. A salarian scientist whom the Spectres met aboard the Hippocrates believes that this DNA is what created the creatures aboard the ship, and he believes that these potential outbreaks can happen on any colony world that was invaded by a Reaper possessing one of these infected cores. The Spectres decide that they have to destroy the ship and return to the Council with this information._

 _They fix the ship and manage to fly it into a nearby star, destroying the creatures onboard. During the final hours, one of the Spectres discovers that the creatures can telepathically speak to him. He doesn't care and tries to kill it anyways. Oh and he kills Olivia too for killing Sarah, who the Spectre developed an almost unbelievably close relationship with in the span of a few short hours_ _in a plot very unlike the plot of final fantasy 7_ _._

 _The Spectres and the survivors manage to escape and return to the Citadel where they tell the Council of what they have learned and begin planning how to deal with the danger of the infected cores. Cloud, the Spectre that the creatures spoke to, soon begins to have strange, alien dreams. In spite of this, he adamantly tries to make the best of his shore leave. He adopts Sarah's child, reunites with an old friend and fellow Spectre, and fights a krogan in a bar._

 _The Spectres soon learn that the saboteurs have unleashed yet another core on the planet of Anhur, putting its people in danger. What's more, an entire fleet from the Systems Alliance has defected to join the saboteurs. They are led by Locke and a scientist known as Mordred. The Spectres don't know why they intend to subject the galaxy to such a grisly fate, but they are determined to stop them. Anhur lies deep in the Terminus Systems. If they are to figure out how to stop the infectious Reaper Cores and how to stop the saboteurs from bringing about transcendence, then it is there they must go…_

 _And so the story_ continues…

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – The Citadel, Docking Bay D-24 – Elevator 3-S_

 _Six weeks after the events of the SSV Hippocrates_

"Wish I'd had a chance to finish up my rogue," groused Cade. He tugged at a couple of clasps on his armor, rolling his shoulder to ensure that his pauldrons weren't attached too tightly.

Percival rolled his eyes. "I swear, you've spent nearly your entire shore leave playing Galaxy of Fantasy, like maybe fifty hours total in just seven days."

"Fifty-four actually," Cade corrected him. "And that's actually pretty tame for me. Hopefully we'll be done this mission before the next expansion drops."

"Hopefully I won't miss my daughter's first words or her first steps while were on this damn mission," Percival sighed sadly.

I placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He turned to me and ticked a corner of his mouth up in a tiny smile as if to say that he was okay. It was times like these that I'd been glad that I had never had children, I couldn't fathom how Percival could always bear to leave them. I suppose that I'd find out soon enough, if I were to consider honoring Sarah's last promise.

"I'm sure Gwen will record everything, and I'll be sure to kill the saboteurs extra fast," Cade assured him.

The three of us were currently on an elevator en-route to the docking bay that the councilors had sent us encrypted coordinates to. There we would meet the ship that we would be taking and the crew that would be accompanying us to Anhur. Unfortunately, we still hadn't received word from the Council as to what reinforcements we would count with once we actually reached the occupied planet. I didn't fancy the idea of re-taking it with a ship's worth of soldiers.

Cade had on his black, blue and silver Ghost Infiltrator armor and his trusty Meera slung over his back. His Vindicator hung beside her and he had cleaned both of his Carnifex's this morning, both of which now hung on each of his hips above his arc grenades. We had all decided to meet with the crew and our team fully-kitted up in order to establish our authority and to look damn cool while doing so.

Percival's M-7 Lancer and his M-23 Katana were clipped onto the back of his massive set of standard N7 armor. His M-5 Phalanx lay holstered across his chest and a brace of Inferno grenades went in a ring around one thigh. He hadn't opted to activate his red Tech Armor, much to the chagrin of Cade, who'd suggested he do so to really wow the newbies.

My jet-black Ariake Technologies Armor with the baller navy-blue trim was slimmer and lighter than both Cade and Percival's suit. It did kind of bother me that Elektra would be wearing the same armor as I, but in her defense it was a fantastic suit, lacking the heavy arm plates that other sets had which allowed my arms more mobility for my biotics.

My Snakebite hung beside my own Vindicator and my custom M-3 Predator was prepped and ready to go. My knives were sharpened and I had purchased a whole crate of top-tier sticky grenades yesterday, six of them now clipped to my utility belt. I couldn't wait to try them out.

Now that that's all out of the way, at our feet's were also trio of black, standard-issue duffel bags in which we each had packed some clothes, data pads, knickknacks, and what-not. We'd been notified this morning that a lot of our more specialized mission equipment – rebreather packs, mag-grips, etc, had already been moved onto the ship's special armory, allowing Percival and I to pack extra personal belongings and for Cade to bring along nearly forty extra chocolate bars.

Cade decided that he absolutely would not finish the rest of the elevator ride in silence. He let out a happy sigh and slung an arm around each of our shoulders. "Spirits I'm so excited! The three of us on another mission! Flying around, shooting bad guys, blowing shit up—"

"—And stopping a bunch of crazies from turning everyone in the galaxy into space zombies," Percival interjected, "And figuring out how to stop some DNA from wiping out life on Earth and Thessia—"

"—hitting up bars on Anhur, saving people, hunting things…" Cade continued on.

"—not to mention trying not to get killed, finding out where all the Reaper Cores are, fighting off an entire renegade fleet…" Percival counter-listed.

I brought my hand up to my brow and rubbed it. My two friends went through their traditional pre-mission bickering, making it once again feel as if it were pilot episode of a very poorly-written sitcom.

It was particularly bad this time but that was understandable given the import of this particular mission. Cade had his coping mechanisms and Percival had his own. Sometimes they irritated one another with them—Cade irritating Percival with his overly cavalier attitude, Percival irritating Cade with his buzz-kill tendencies—but neither of them ever held it against the other. I on the other hand preferred to just fume quietly. Strangely, I felt more at calm and focused now than I had ever felt before a mission. Unlike Cade, I didn't need false confidence. Unlike Percival, I didn't need to beat myself up on the potential dangers.

A part of me secretly wondered if maybe the two of them had it right and it was I who was in denial about what awaited us on Anhur. The colony had a population of nearly five-hundred and fifty million people, all of them potentially changed into those horrific synthetic creatures. The Hippocrates had only had about a thousand of them on board and we had barely survived that. Not to mention Anhur was currently occupied by nearly a hundred renegade ships and several dozen hijacked planetary defense cannons.

They weren't good odds. Deep down I probably was afraid. That's why I didn't deign to stop or interrupt the two, because deep down I knew that they too were probably scared shitless. They needed this.

"Seriously Cade, aren't you even a little bit worried?" Percival asked.

Cade's blue eyes glinted as he looked at my friend. "Yeah, I am," he admitted. "But I've never fought well when I was scared, and I want to fight well where were going."

"I want to fight well, especially when both your lives are at stake," he continued quietly. The flanging in his voice had taken on a different tone now, and Percival and I both had to strain a little to hear him.

"Potentially a _planet's worth_ of those creatures, guys. Spirits, I am shaking in my armor. I have no idea how the hell we are going to pull this one off."

Percival looked away guiltily, likely mentally kicking himself for bringing Cade down. Sometimes it was hard to remember that the younger turian was only twenty-five, despite being a galactically reknown war hero. Like all young men, they covered up their fear and insecurities with bravado, by being the loudest in the room.

He looked at me for advice but I could only shrug and raise my eyebrows at him. Between us, Cade had fallen silent, his shoulders slouched, and was currently staring at the elevator doors.

 _It's your mess, fix it,_ I said with my eyes.

The big N7 sighed and pulled the smaller turian into a broad hug, their chestplates clapping loudly together as Cade was smashed against Percival's beefy chest.

"I'm sorry buddy," he began. "Honestly, I'm fucking scared too, scared that I'll never see my family again, scared I might lose one of you guys… shit, I'm just scared all around."

Instead of pulling away, Cade wrapped his bony arms around Percival's broad upper back and leaned into the hug.

"I'm scared I'll fuck up, miss a shot, and get one of you killed!" Cade cried. "I'm scared that I'll never see Camilla again, that I'll never get to have kids of my own, and that I also might lose one of you guys… Spirits, I'm more scared of this mission than any other mission I've ever been on."

"—I'm scared I'll never get to have my wife's cooking again, I'm scared I'll never get to teach Tristan how to—"

"—I'm scared that I'll never get to play the next Galaxy of Fantasy expansion, I'm scared I'll—"

And on and on it went, both of them clinging to each other and (fake?) sobbing into each other's armor. I closed my eyes and rubbed the both of them with my hands as both Percival and Cade put all their fears onto the table for each other to see. It was unsettling.

"Cloud! Get the fuck in here!" Percival screamed.

I backed away as Cade's arm shot out to grab me by the wrist. "No, I'm good man, really—,"

I struggled and thrashed but there was nowhere for me to run inside the tiny elevator. With a tiny shout of terror I found myself pulled and sandwiched between two heavily-armored Spectres. Percival's chestplate dug into the back of my head and Cade's armored cowl was pressing painfully against the line of bruises that the krogan had left on my chest back in Steve's bar.

"We know you're scared too man, and we're here for you," Percival whispered quietly into my ear as he swayed slowly in place, eyes closed.

"Hold me Jack, just hold me…" Cade whispered quietly in front of me.

I sighed and resigned myself to the embrace of my two friends. Long ago I'd learned that it was better just to let them get it out of their system. I placed my two hands in front of my groin to from Cade from getting too uncomfortably close down there, but that only prompted the turian to move his two hands from Percival's back down to my ass.

With a chime the elevator door opened, and it was in that position that the four councilors and a platoon of C-sec guards found us.

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – The Citadel, Docking Bay D-24_

 _Six weeks after the events of the SSV Hippocrates_

"If you're all quite finished," Victus sighed, "we've taken the liberty to assemble your crew to the best of our abilities given the sensitive nature of your mission."

I shoved my two friends off of me and grabbed my duffel bag off the floor, striding out of the elevator past a pair of humans in C-sec armor struggling to keep the grins off of their faces.

Cade and Percival followed suit, with Cade taking the opportunity to shove his face close to one of the officers as if to say ' _what are you looking at?_

We all moved down the corridor towards the docking bay. The four councilors walked a couple of steps in front of me. The platoon had split up so that there was a squad covering each of the two sides, another at the rear and another in front of the councilors. Cade and Percival followed a few steps behind me, their backs straight and their faces now an emotionless mask.

"All of them have signed non-disclosures, although several of them had already told a few of their family members about what the mission will entail. It isn't something that we're comfortable with, but we're not about to start silencing civilians for knowing dangerous information," chuckled Victus.

"In addition," the turian councilor continued, "several individuals have come forward requesting to join the mission on the basis of some form of attachment with several of your pre-selected crew. Seeing as this is not an official military operation, whether or not they will be permitted to join is something that we will leave up to your discretion."

"What about the rest of the strike-force, councilor?" I asked. We weren't going to be able to take a whole fleet into the Terminus Systems, and anything more than a stealth frigate or two would likely attract the attention of one of the many warlords that ruled over the systems. They'd consider it an act of war and would retaliate against Council Space.

"We've hired a whole battalion of Blue Suns Mercenaries under the command of Captain Revak Ghar'aran," replied councilor Jath. "As a mercenary outfit based in the Terminus Systems, their presence would not put us under the scrutiny of the Terminus Warlords, and since Anhur is actually one of the worlds from which they pull many of their recruits, they were more than happy to cooperate with us to liberate it."

Percival's mask slipped and the slightest of grimaces came out. Cade and I immediately turned to look at him _._

"I trust that that won't be an issue for you, Spectre Percival?" Jath asked my friend. "Given your service record?"

Percival swallowed and shook his head. "No councilor, whatever it takes to complete the mission."

"Excellent," nodded the salarian councilor. "They'll accompany you aboard half-a-dozen cruisers and a several frigate wolf-packs."

"Will that be enough given that the defectors have nearly a hundred ships in and around Anhur?" asked Cade.

Jath shook her head. "We can't pull together enough ships for you three to fight off an entire rogue fleet. You'll have to get creative, Spectre Kitiarian, about how you decide to complete your mission."

My friend nodded and pulled his mandibles close to his face. We hadn't actually been expecting that we'd have to fight nearly a quarter of the Ninth Fleet in a straight up naval space battle. Spectres weren't supposed to be a flurry of haymakers to the face, we were supposed to be a knife in the back. We'd go in quiet and quick, hit our objectives and slip away before the Ninth Fleet could bring their superior numbers into play.

I already had a half-assed plan in place. Sure, it was predictable and not particularly original and was definitely something that Admiral Octavian could see coming a mile away, but it would be something impossible for the saboteurs to stop as long as I kept killing every single soldier they threw at me.

"What's the size of the colonial militia on Anhur?" I asked. A battalion and change might have been enough for raids and what-not, but it wouldn't be enough for civilian evacuation in case those creatures appeared.

"Roughly about point-five percent of the population," replied Jath. "No word from them, and they're mostly scattered across the planet. Last I checked they had a few dozen moth-balled space fighters, an old wet navy, and some ground vehicles, but otherwise they rely on escorts that usually accompany supply or trade vessels and their web of planetary defense cannons for defense against an invading fleet. Anhur is largely a peaceful trade colony, they just aren't on the same military playing field as Illium or Omega."

Damn. A militia of about half a percent meant that probably only a tenth of that were able-bodied militiamen ready for combat. The other ninety-percent were likely support staff, logistics, etc etc.

Cade leaned in and whispered into my ear. "We've done more with less," he assured me.

"Maybe we can co-opt the local police force," offered Percival. "No idea how willing they'd be to work with Council Spectres, but it wouldn't hurt to ask."

"We wish we could give you more, Spectres," Tevos sighed, "If Anhur were a planet under our jurisdiction than maybe things would be different. Our fleets are stretched thin as they are patrolling our own territories and a lot of our resources are tied up in this investigation into the remainder of our fleets."

If we could regain control of their planetary defense cannons, then the Ninth Fleet wouldn't be able to do shit. Problem was, the generator that supplied them with power was the most obvious of targets, meaning that the saboteurs had to have left it well-guarded. I wasn't sure if they were willing to sacrifice them in the event that we did manage to take them, or to prevent us from having them, but if we wanted to evacuate the colony, we'd need to take those guns out of the saboteur's hands anyhow.

Up ahead the corridor was about to end in a couple of meters and feed out into the docking bay itself. The councilors and their C-sec bodyguards moved through and stood off to the side, allowing the three of us to move up to the railing and look down at what awaited us in the docking bay below.

"We might not be able to give you an army or a fleet, Spectres, but nonetheless, you won't be going to Anhur alone," councilor Lanllivan said warmly.

I was the first one through. I braced my elbows against the railing, looked down and smiled. My heart welled up with some kind of nameless emotion as I looked at what lay below us.

Docked below was the SSV Excalibur, in all her sleek, shapely glory. Her wings were painted in black and the body in Alliance Silver. A pair of blue stripes ran from bow to stern, accentuating her curves and making her look pretty as hell.

"Spirits, those are the new XM-38 Scrambler Torpedoes," Cade whispered, pointing at a quartet of missiles under each of the Excalibur's wings.

"Correct, Spectre Kitiarian," Lanllavan nodded. "We greenlit a few prototypes for your use, if fired they should generate hundreds of ghost signatures on enemy ladar, allowing you to mask your numbers and the movements of your task force. Use them wisely."

"It's good to be back," whispered Percival. We'd been expecting to take a heavy stealth frigate to Anhur, given our personnel and discretionary needs and I'd be lying if I didn't think we would be taking this one.

"Given that the Excalibur was involved in your previous mission aboard the SSV Hippocrates, it seemed natural for you three to take her into your next one," Victus replied. "We've already cleared it with Systems Alliance High Command, they've graciously allowed you to take it for the duration of your campaign against these fanatics."

We all boarded the lift and made our way down to the docking bay floor where our crew awaited.

Elektra greeted us first, already clad in her own set of Ariake Technologies armor. She pushed past a pair of bulky turian C-sec guards and grinned at the three of us coming off the lift.

"What took you guys so long?" She asked.

"None of your business, harpy," Cade snapped. Elektra laughed and pulled up a photo of her omni-tool and showed it to Cade. I glanced at it briefly, noting that it was from the vantage point of one of the cameras that had been installed in the elevator that the three of us had taken on our way down to the docking bay.

"Nothing to do with this?" she grinned slyly.

Cade growled and made to grab at her omni-tool but she pulled it away. Percival shook his head while I merely sighed.

Elektra looked at me, laughter twinkling in her eyes, and gave me a small wink. She then jerked her head over her shoulder and gestured for us to move along.

"Come on, it's time to meet your new crew," she laughed.

A mass of people awaited us beneath the wings of the SSV Excalibur with duffel bags similar to ours tucked between their legs, chatting quietly. Most noticeable were the two-dozen figures clad in iconic black armor, white knights astride horses painted on their shoulders.

I moved up and took the hand of the Jaeger at the head of the pack. "Captain Murgen," I greeted warmly.

The captain smiled and shook my hand enthusiastically. "What on earth did you sign us up for, Spectre?"

"Nothing you wouldn't have done for free," I replied. Murgen chuckled and a couple of the Jaegers behind him laughed.

The sound of running footsteps drew my attention and I watched as a slight, female figure pushed her way past the cadre of armored soldiers and fling herself into Cade's arms.

"Turian bastard," Camilla Martell cried, "when _mi padre_ told me he'd spoken with my boyfriend I almost cried!"

Cade smiled and stroked her hair. "Well, lucky for me I had a friend speak on my behalf," he grinned wickedly at me. My chest ached a bit as I remembered my encounter with her father.

"I know, _pendejo,_ why didn't you say something to him?" she asked.

"Why didn't you tell me your father was a krogan?" countered Cade.

Percival moved up and beamed at the female engineer. "It's good to see you, Camilla."

"You too," she replied warmly. She disentangled from Cade and gave Percival a tight hug. "Cloud, get in here as well!" Camilla cried.

I took a small step back. "No thanks I'm g —".

Percival's beefy arm shot out and once again I found myself pulled into a cramped, three-way embrace. I could hear a couple more camera-clicks behind me and some distinct feminine snickering.

"It's good to see you too, Camilla," I greeted, my voice muffled by Percival's massive, armored chest.

Eventually the technician had gotten her fill, she finally relented and released the two of us.

"It'll be good to have you with us, that way we won't have to deal with Cade moping the entire mission," Percival laughed. Cade gave him an annoyed look but otherwise refrained from replying with a witty rejoinder.

"I'm not surprised the Council hand-picked you," I told her.

Camilla nodded and smiled. "Yeah, they actually contacted me early on. Said they saw me perform in your mission recordings and were much impressed. Also, seeing as I am Systems Alliance, it wasn't too hard to have me transferred to the SSV Excalibur."

She jerked her head over my shoulder towards where Elektra had been standing silently the entire time.

"Who's your friend?" Camilla asked.

Elektra and I shared a quick look and I nodded to indicate that she should introduce herself.

"Spectre Operative Elektra," she smiled. Elektra grabbed Camilla's proffered hand and shook it.

"Camilla Martell, Systems Alliance Drive Core technician," the Hispanic engineer replied warmly.

Cade grabbed Camilla and quickly pulled her away from Elektra. "Don't get too chummy too soon, wouldn't want her to stab you in the back. Why don't we go tour the ship?"

Elektra rolled her eyes while Camilla looked at the turian in slight confusion. With an awkward shrug, the engineer left to board the Excalibur with my friend. Probably to talk shit about our new fourth Spectre. Hopefully just to talk shit about our new fourth Spectre.

"She's pretty," Elektra said quietly. She crossed her arms and grinned at me. Maybe it was just her accent, but she made it sound like she was insinuating something.

"She is," I agreed.

"She can also fight," chimed in Murgen. "Give me nine months and I'd make a Jaeger out of her."

"Give Cade nine months and he'd make her something else," Elektra chuckled.

Percival cocked an eyebrow, bemused. "I don't think it works like that."

A set of heavy, ominous footsteps stomped slowly towards us from behind, then a shadow was cast over me, chilling the back of my neck. All four of us turned in slight confusion, wondering if somehow there was an active mechanical loader still being used or something. I looked up to see the krogan that I'd fought before towering over me, his one good eye regarding us icily.

"I'll be joining you, that's non-negotiable," he rumbled. "Urdnot Garm at your service."

Percival moved up behind me, ready to intervene should the krogan take my next few words in the wrong way and even Murgen's hand drifted just a tiny bit closer to his pistol. I made a mental note to ask Cade exactly how many people he had sent the video of our fight to.

I held out a hand to stop Murgen. I moved in closer to the massive krogan and stared directly into his eyes, uncowed. You wouldn't believe the number of krogan I've had come to me asking to team up, and you wouldn't believe how many of them were Urdnots. It's like every last one of them developed a boner for serving with a Spectre ever since Wrex did his thing twenty-five years ago.

However, I knew that this was not why this old krogan was here. Garm stared unblinkingly at me and I stared unblinkingly back. He was so close that I could see my breath fogging up his bright-red armor in the periphery of my vision. His breath was a hot wave of what smelled like raw meat and fish. I wrinkled my nose ever so slightly.

We stared silently at each other for the better part of a minute. Several onlookers looked curiously at the two of us engaging in our tiny contest. Everyone watched quietly, waiting to see what would happen.

Finally he tilted his head back and laughed. It was so loud that my ears began to hurt and everyone in the docking bay immediately turned to see the source of all the noise.

He laughed and laughed and laughed, tears streaming out of his good eye. It was so loud that I could feel the sound waves irritating the bruises on my chest. Eventually it died down and he slammed a heavy hand down on my shoulder, nearly knocking me flat on my face.

"Between you and I, Spectre, my baby girl picked the wrong one. I look forward to fighting with you," he chuckled.

Elektra crossed her arms behind me at the krogan's statement and blew a strand of hair away from her face in irritation. I merely smiled and jerked my head back towards Captain Murgen.

"You'll be attached to Captain Murgen and his platoon while you're on board the Excalibur. And between you and I, Camilla will likely be serving in engineering, no need to keep her on the ground in harm's way," I told him.

Garm leaned in close and barred his pointy teeth in a toothy grin. "Looks like we understand each other perfectly," he thundered.

"Follow my orders or you'll wish that Shepard had never cured the genophage," I returned.

With one last chuckle he stomped off to Murgen and Percival and began discussing matters with the two Alliance marines. Together the trio moved up the ramp to board the Excalibur.

"Damn, you handled that like a _boss,_ " crowed another familiar voice.

"Straight up G!" exclaimed another one.

Accer and Teewin moved up in the wake of the departing krogan, smiles on their faces and clad in their black armor. My eyes widened in surprise when I saw that Rake and his team were right behind them, also wearing Jaeger armor.

"Damn, how long did you spend on your knees to pull that off, Gunnery Chief?" I asked.

Rake rolled his eyes while Fly and Jay both laughed good-naturedly. Soph smiled and gave me a little wave. All four of them were wearing the same black, angular armor and the same painted white knight that Accer and Teewin were currently wearing.

"The captain had a couple of holes to fill after the Hippocrates," explained Accer. "Rake and his team proved themselves a hundred times over on the ship, so when the time came the captain and I called in a couple of favors with the Systems Alliance High Command and had them fast-tracked."

"Yeah, the captain's got some pull," winked Teewin. "You should have heard the way he sat Admiral Vega down and demanded that they be pulled in, it was like watching a child dress down a bear."

I shook hands with each and every one of them, a smile on my face. They were exactly the marines that I wanted at my back when we hit Anhur, I was glad that the Council had seen that.

"Can't let you hog all the glory, sir," Rake said. "You non-Alliance types make us grunts look bad."

"I don't think he's the reason we look bad," Jay said with a raised eyebrow.

"The four of us did get our asses kicked by some split-chinned saboteur back on the ship, a turian that the good Spectre here nearly beat the shit out of," added Fly.

The newly-christened Jaegers all laughed good-naturedly at their squad leader. I hoped that I'd be able to keep all of them safe in the days to come.

Teewin caught sight of Elektra behind me and whistled. "And who is this lovely lady?" he smiled at her. He brushed past me and held out a hand. "Gunnery Chief Sean Teewin, at your service."

Elektra gave him her best smile in return and gracefully took his hand. "Spectre Operative Elektra, at your service."

Accer rolled his eyes and moved to pull his friend away. Teewin tried to shake off the smaller Jaeger in protest but the young biotic held gamely on.

"Come on," Accer groaned, "We need to get our stuff aboard the ship."

With a sigh, Teewin ceased fighting and followed his team leader aboard the Excalibur, shooting Elektra a departing, apologetic glance. I couldn't help but notice that both Jay and Fly were also making eyes at Elektra, and as usual she seemed to be basking in it. She was like an adoration vampire – it both fed and sustained her, literally, because I think I've seen her eat maybe four times in the last six years.

"You're dismissed, Jaegers," I sighed.

Rake and his team gave me one last salute and followed Accer and Teewin inside the ship.

"I'll go with them," Percival said. "We're set up in the officer's quarters again by the way, Victus said that the captain's cabin has been repurposed into a Spectre-only armory and meeting room."

I nodded. "That'll be great, tell Cade I'm taking the starboard side, I like having the wall to my right when I'm sleeping facing the door."

"Will do!" he replied in a curiously high-pitched voice. Percival grabbed his duffel bag, slung it over his shoulders, and quickly scurried up the ramp.

Most of the Jaegers began boarding with them as well, leaving just the councilors, their guards, a few of the ship's personnel, Elektra and I.

"That's my favourite way to sleep as well," Elektra smiled. "More room to throw a biotic field at your intruders."

I chuckled. "Yeah, remember that time on Watson?"

"That stasis held them long enough for us to not only get dressed _and_ have breakfeast," she grinned.

Many of the ship's personnel had boarded, leaving only a few behind. One of them lingered at the back of the pack, a duffel bag slung over her shoulders and a Flight Lieutenant's cap pulled snugly over her light-blonde hair. She caught sight of me on her way up the ramp and stopped and looked directly at me with her gray eyes.

She didn't come over to say hi, instead she merely gave me a tiny wave, one that I returned with a small smile.

She continued up the ramp and boarded the ship, followed closely by a few of her other crewmembers. Navigator Lee tripped and nearly tumbled of the ramp at least twice, stopped only by the quick actions of Ensign Chan.

"She is also pretty," Elektra whispered in my ear, prompting me to sigh again.

"Not as pretty as you, is that what you're fishing for here?" I said, exasperated.

She beamed at me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Yes, was that so hard?"

I blinked at her. "You've got some disturbing issues, Ellie."

"Yes. They're called 'daddy' issues. Because I didn't have one, something that _you_ should understand more than anyone," she joked.

I didn't follow up with a witty rejoinder, or reciprocate with the kind of banter she was hoping for, the kind I might have given her years ago before that fateful day. The councilors began to board the ship as well followed by a team of C-sec guards, probably to go over a couple of last-minute details.

Elektra eventually looked away. We stood in awkward silence, no doubt the both of us remembering the people we were before we had both decided to pledge our service to the galaxy at large. We had both helped each other through some of the worst parts of our lives, had grown up together in a world that hadn't known what to do with either of us.

I remembered the gangly, tall girl with the abnormally long limbs and how awkward she'd been. I remember stealing food from street vendors and patching our two ratty old blankets together so that we'd have one whole one. I remember the two of us stowing away on a ship, hiding from the crew, talking for days in whispers in fear of being found.

Eventually she brushed the back of her hand across the base of one of her eyes and nodded resolutely. "You have every right to be angry at me for what I did, I don't blame you for not ever getting past it, and I most certainly don't blame Cade for still being upset about it."

The rest of the crew and even the councilors had finally boarded, leaving just the two of us in that docking bay.

Elektra grabbed her duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Come on, they're already all aboard the ship. We've got a galaxy to save."

And with that she moved past me and made her way onto the ramp, heading up to the airlock. I grabbed my own duffel bag and followed behind her.

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – The Citadel, Docking Bay D-24 — aboard the SSV Excalibur_

 _Six weeks after the events of the SSV Hippocrates_

The Durandal-class Heavy Stealth Frigate was comprised of six decks and was approximately three hundred and fourteen meters long, making it nearly twice the length of the original Normandy-class Stealth Frigate. It possessed thicker armor-plating, twin XM28 Thanix Cannons, and possessed the capacity to house and deploy larger concentrations of troops.

Although they lacked the maneuverability of the traditional frigate, they possessed greater speed and could match the firepower of an Alliance Destroyer. Despite these advantages, Heavy Stealth Frigates were not meant for wolf-pack combat tactics such as Alliance frigates were or stealth reconnaissance like traditional stealth frigates such as the Normandy were, although they could fill those roles comfortably. No, they were designed for cloaked insertions of platoon-to-company sized special forces soldiers.

Elektra and I moved through the airlock and stepped into the Excalibur. Directly in front of us was the galaxy map, awash in a swirl of bright colors and lights, the four councilors arrayed around it, their guards close beside them. Percival stood close by while Cade leaned against the elevator console, his blue eyes travelling down the length of the command deck, making note of the personnel.

"Finally, where were you?" asked Percival.

"Did you check your back for a knife-handle?" chimed Cade. Elektra glared angrily at his comment but refrained from saying anything in front of the councilors.

I dropped my bag onto the floor in front of my friends and walked over to where Tevos and Victus were conversing quietly.

"Councilors, when do we depart?" I asked.

Victus looked up at me. "Immediately. The SSV Excalibur has been fully stocked, all crew members are now on board and the corridor to the mass relay is clear. We'll be out of your hair in a bit."

I nodded appreciatively, "Good, the people of Anhur won't be able to hold out much longer."

Tevos stepped up beside Victus and swept her hands out in front of her, raising her voice so that she could be heard by all those present. "By merit of his former rank, Spectre Operative Lancelot Percival will be in command of this ship, and the agent-in-command—"

"Why am _I_ never agent-in-command!" hissed Cade behind me.

Tevos abruptly stopped when Percival suddenly cleared his throat behind her. I blinked in confusion, taken back a bit by the interruption. The asari councilor stared at the former N7 for a moment before gesturing for Percival to step forward and speak.

Percival nodded in appreciation to the councilors, his hands were clasped behind his back and his spine was comically straight. I had seen that pose countless times. It was the pose Percival adopted every time he wanted to ask some higher-up for a big favor. Neither Cade nor I had ever mastered it, and it had gotten us some very useful shit over the years. I mentally rubbed my hands in anticipation at what Percival would ask them for.

"Councilors, thank you for your confidence in me, but I don't believe that I should be the one in command," he began.

Lanllivan raised an eyebrow and both Tevos and Victus both blinked in surprise. Jath merely looked at me and winked. I narrowed my eyes at my friend as Percival continued to speak.

"As a former Systems Alliance marine attached to the Ninth Fleet, I fear that some crewmembers may feel uneasy with me in overall command despite my status as a Council Spectre. In accordance with such concerns, I feel that the position of agent-in-command would be better filled by one of my colleagues."

Percival didn't even so much as look at Cade. He immediately looked at me, prompting everyone else to do the same, including the four councilors.

"Spectre Operative Cloud not only was the only one present for first contact with the creatures, he also single-handedly secured the Reaper CPU, discovered the video, and personally eliminated two high-ranking saboteurs who had been responsible for the events aboard the Hippocrates," Percival listed.

Victus eventually held up a hand and Percival stopped talking. "We hear your concerns, Spectre Percival. In light of your feelings we would be more than happy to delegate command of this mission to your fellow Spectre operative."

I silently cursed my friend, who merely looked my way and winked. Agent-in-command had never _not_ been Percival, not once in the entire time we'd worked together. I hated being in-charge, I was a doer, not a leader. Leaders were planners and thinkers and pushers and officers. They knew what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to. They knew how to act in a crisis situation, how to respond to changing circumstances, and how to bring out the best in those who served under them. They weren't orphans who liked to fight.

I stared at him intensely. _Don't do this to me man._

He shrugged lightly. _It's about time you grew up,_ his eyes seemed to say.

"Then it's settled," Tevos decided. She raised her voice again for all to hear. "Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud, you are hereby in command of the SSV Excalibur and the agent-in-command."

The crew clapped and a few of them cheered. I simply stood numbly in place as I struggled to come to terms with the fact that I was now responsible for the dozens of lives on board, and for the lives of everyone else in the galaxy, blissfully unaware of the terrors lurking under their beds.

If the mission was a success, if we managed to stop the saboteurs from turning everyone into synthetic killing machines, then everything would be fine and it'd be because of me.

If the mission was a failure, if we couldn't stop them, then billions of people would die, whole colonies would fall and it would also be because of me.

"Would you like to say a few words to the crew, Operative Cloud?" asked Lanllavan.

She gestured to the small command deck overlooking the galaxy map, the customary position of whomever was in command of the ship. The map swirled and swirled, ribbons of blue and purple and green and white mixing like paint on a palette. Anyone who stared too long at it would swear that they were slowly being pulled in.

I stared at it, lost in thought, still caught off-guard by the declaration of the councilors. An inordinate amount of time passed with me just staring silently at the galaxy map, causing more than one crew member to look around uneasily. Just when I was about to shake my head and turn down the offer of words, I suddenly felt an elbow dig into my lower back.

"Go," whispered Elektra. "They're waiting on you."

Swallowing nervously, I proceeded up onto the command deck. I suddenly became very, very conscious of all the eyes that were now on me and my heart felt like it was beating a mile a minute. Beads of sweat dotted my forehead and my jaw was clenched so tightly that I feared I'd shatter my teeth. I noticed that several of the crew members around the galaxy map had started whispering amongst themselves in confusion at my silence. It only made it worse.

Just when I thought that I couldn't take it anymore, just as I was about to turn around and beg the councilors to rescind their decision, a tiny voice sprung up in the back of my head, one that I'd last heard about the Hippocrates.

 _You're going to do fine._

And like that, my heart resumed its normal rhythm. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and felt like a hand had suddenly wiped away all my anxiety, my fears, leaving behind only a sense of clarity, of determination.

 _Like you said, some things you'll never feel truly prepared for. Better to just dive in and do them, right?_

I placed one hand on the console in front of me and keyed open the comms with another. Static echoed throughout the ship as I was patched through to every available speaker. I licked my lips and considered my next words carefully.

"This is Spectre Operative Cloud speaking," I began.

A palpable hush settled throughout the ship as I began to speak, as if the entire crew had suddenly collectively held their breaths. I shrugged off the last of the uncertainty and soldiered on.

"We have our orders. Find the Ninth Fleet, find the saboteurs, stop the phenomenon on Earth, and stop these creatures from killing everything in the galaxy."

Percival and Cade and Elektra all nodded at me. I looked at them, taking the opportunity to memorize each and every last detail on their faces. A part of me knew that after this mission we would cease to being the people we were, and I wanted to remember each of us as we were one last time. I closed my eyes and turned back to the microphone.

"I won't lie to you, crew. This mission won't be easy. This began with an act of terror on one of our ships, our friends and our fellow crewmates turned into horrific, monstrous creatures right out of our very nightmares."

My voice grew stronger and stronger as I continued on. These creatures had the potential to wipe out billions of lives in weeks. We had to find the Reaper Cores with the aggressor DNA before it was too late. There was no price too high to pay, not when so many lives were at stake.

"The saboteurs did this. Mordred did this. And we know that they won't stop there. Whoever these people are, they aren't going limit whatever they're doing to ships like the Hippocrates, to colonies such as Anhur."

I clenched my fists at the thought of hundreds of millions of people dying at the hands of their converted families and friends — sons and daughters falling to their mothers and fathers, children being ripped to shreds by those who were supposed to protect them.

"For too long, we've lived with the belief that the worst of the horrors that the galaxy would see passed with the Reapers."

 _Whole cities burning, a loud horn, babies torn from their mother's arms._

"We now know that to be a lie. The fight for freedom and peace is not something that can ever be finished. Freedom is not a right, but a privilege, one that must be continuously fought for."

I swallowed and stared at the galaxy map in front of me. _A gunshot, screaming, more horns._

"My crew, now it's our turn to fight, our turn to bleed, our turn to die. I wish that there was another way, and if there were I'd chase it to the ends of the galaxy, but there isn't."

 _A woman waving goodbye, a child letting go, John smiling at me with his bright, blue eyes._

"We need to do this. Not just for our own sake, but for the sake of everyone else in the galaxy. Every last man, woman and child. These saboteurs need to be stopped, Mordred needs to be stopped."

I clenched my jaw tightly for a moment. When the time came I swore that I'd drive my knife through Mordred's heart. There wouldn't be any more orphans.

"And I promise you… We will stop them."


	27. Chapter 27 - Extra Set of Hands

**Chapter 27 – Extra Set of Hands**

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Galaxy Map_

 _Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix_

My fingers danced across the console as I finished plotting the navigation points myself. Sure, technically I could have ordered Navigator Lee to do so, now that I was his commanding officer, but delegating wasn't something that I could just slide into. I much preferred to do my own work. Less room for errors.

We'd be meeting with the Blue Suns one relay jump away from the Amun System, in the Minos Wasteland. Although technically the Eagle Nebula was only one relay away from the Serpent Nebula, I'd decided to take a less direct route towards the Eagle Nebula, plotting a course that would take us through the Ismar Frontier and then to the Crescent Nebula.

Behind me my friends waited respectfully and silently for me to finish plotting the course. Percival had his arms crossed in front of his chest while Cade leaned casually beside the elevator doors behind me. Elektra was busy checking her nails which looked to have recently been immaculately done, even though we'd soon be entering combat in a few days. That was a very Elektra thing to do.

"By the way, your pep talk gave me the most delightful of chills," grinned Cade. "Inspiring, heartfelt, although I have to say it does sound familiar…"

"Thank God I packed extra underwear," added Elektra, still transfixed on her nails.

Percival rubbed his chin and looked thoughtfully at me. "You know what, Cade? It _did_ sound familiar…."

I rubbed my eyes and stomped off the command platform. "Screw you, Percival, take your agent-in-command like a man next time," I grumbled.

"Or give it to me," Cade whined. "I've been a Spectre longer than Cloud has, you know how long I've been waiting to be made agent-in-command?"

"If anything, they should have put me in charge," Elektra said with a shake of her head. "You boys only know how to shoot and muck things up."

Percival ignored the other two and simply gave me a knowing smile. I wanted badly to warp it off his face.

"Cloud, listen to me man. _This is your mission,_ and not just because the Council said so _._ Your actions and decisions aboard the Hippocrates were on fucking point, better than I would have made in the circumstances. You might not see it but I do, the councilors do, we all do," he assured me firmly.

I sighed. "Perc, I don't even know what to do, how to start… I never trained for command like you did, you know what kind of work I did before I joined the Spectres."

"But you _do_ know what to do," Percival insisted. "You've got great instincts, even if you don't think so. What are your instincts telling you to do?"

 _Training rooms… drink… clean Snakebite…pass out and hope that those dreams don't come back…_ I thought.

I sighed and rubbed my jaw tiredly. "Get to know the crew, make note of who's new and who's not, ID strengths and weaknesses and get a feel for how they'd react in certain situations and what roles they'd be best suited to…," I conceded quietly. Not rocket science, it was what we were expected to do in any situation involving unknown personnel.

"Exactly," Percival agreed. He took a step forward and slapped a hand on my back. "Check the crew and check the ship. Don't be afraid to delegate. Also, don't be afraid to trust your subordinates, you know that we have a navigator who can input our routes, right?"

I nodded. He wasn't wrong. If I kept micromanaging and doing things on my own, or kept my crew in the dark, they'd never learn to trust me and would have or develop problems following me. It could lead to a breakdown of authority in critical moments that could be devastatingly costly. I had to learn to trust these people to do their jobs and to do their jobs well.

"Fine," I conceded. "I'll go make some rounds. Cade, do you mind taking my stuff to our room?"

My heart skipped a beat when I saw my friend awkwardly scratch the scales on the back of his neck and look to the ground.

"Yeah, about that…" he said with a cringe.

Percival cleared his throat and awkwardly rubbed his neck as well. "Hey captain? Friend? I'm a married man as you well know…,"

"—And I'd probably tear her throat out the first night," interjected Cade. "Not consciously of course, but say I have another sleep-walking episode and she said something that pissed me off the night before and—."

I narrowed my eyes and glared at the both of them.

Elektra finally looked up from her nails and gave me a big smile. "Hey roomie! Dibs on the starboard bunk, the one facing the door."

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 3 (Medical Bay)_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Chief Medical Officer Rentea T'lana)_

 _Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix_

"Stop touching that!"

"Stop touching what?"

"That!"

"I'm not touching it!"

Rentea sighed in disgust and marched over to where her sister sat in one of the trauma beds, fiddling with a top-of-the-line hand-held precision medi-gel dispenser, designed to inject medi-gel into deep-tissue wounds. The little puppy cost tens of thousands of credits and had been one of the first requisitions that Rentea had made after witnessing firsthand the kind of wounds that those creatures tended to inflict on their victims.

"Honestly, don't you have better things to do than to mess up my work station? Why don't you go and introduce yourself to the Jaegers or something?" Rentea sighed exasperatedly at her unwanted guest.

Rayla scoffed and set down the hand-held dispenser beside her. "Mingle with those meatheads? Don't get me wrong, the Jaegers are excellent at what they do, but they don't exactly make for interesting conversationalists."

Rentea grabbed the dispenser and placed it back in its original location. "Then just go and train with them or something. I saw the way some of them looked at you, I bet they'd be itching to practice some hand-to-hand."

Her sister rolled her eyes and let out a light huff. "They're hardly my type. Loud, boisterous, trigger-happy — great for a night, gross for a lifetime, or so mom used to say."

Rayla turned and grinned wolfishly at her younger sister. "That Spectre on the other hand…"

"Which one?" Rentea asked curiously.

"Tall, smaller than the big, blonde one— the one with the icy-blue ones," she described quickly. "I've heard the stories, what I wouldn't give to take a little peek inside his mind…"

"Spectre Cloud?" scoffed Rentea. "He's not one I'd play around with, you didn't see him aboard the Hippocrates…"

"All the better," Rayla laughed merrily. "I mean, all three of them are hot, even the turian one. And you know I like them dangerous, not egg-headed and manicured and soft-voiced…" she trailed off.

Jaelen looked up from where he'd been quietly looking at samples through a microscope. "I'm right here Rayla," he said in irritation.

"Yes, you are!" Rayla grinned at the scientist. "And my sister loves you for it."

Rentea put a hand on Jaelen's shoulder. The salarian scientist looked up at her and smiled.

"How about we get you a real boyfriend, maybe see if that turian Spectre would be willing to trade up? Unless you want to just stick this one out for another twenty years," chided Rayla.

Jaelen tensed up and made to move out of his chair but Rentea pressed down firmly on his shoulder.

"She's just being Rayla," Rentea assured him. "You know she's kidding. She'd die to keep you safe, if only to keep me happy."

"Yes, Jaelen," agreed Rayla, "and only because you probably don't know how to."

Jaelen shook his head irritably and ignored the inciting asari, returning to his DNA samples. Just then the doors to the medical bay opened and in walked the Spectre in question.

His face might have been chiseled from marble for all the emotion it showed, and it looked like he had shaved off his stubble since leaving the Hippocrates. His glacier-like eyes softened ever so slightly at the sight of both her and Jaelen, and he moved up to stand a few steps awkwardly away, one hand running through his short, black hair.

"Rentea, Jaelen, it's good to see you guys," Cloud said softly. He was clad in full armor, although he only had his pistol strapped to his waist, as well as the two knives crossed beneath his lower back. He looked more gaunt than Rentea had last seen him all those weeks ago, amplifying the planes and angles of his face.

Jaelen smiled and rose up from his seat. He offered his hand which the Spectre immediately took and shook firmly with a small smile.

"Pleasure to see you again, Cloud. Must say, excited at the prospect of working together again on this troubling, fascinating matter; dangerous circumstances and threat to galactic safety notwithstanding," Jaelen gushed.

The Spectre nodded. "Likewise, I was hoping that the Council would include you in the roster. Are you heading up our Science and Research department?" Cloud asked.

"Yes! Head of small team, mixed of Systems Alliance and Salarian researchers, will be providing up-to-date analysis on any biological and genetic developments regarding the creatures and the DNA that you might encounter on the field," Jaelen rattled on enthusiastically.

The salarian biology specialist took a deep breath and sighed happily. "Had to be me, someone else might get it wrong."

Cloud smiled and for it second it made him look almost a decade younger. Not that he looked old, but with the way he acted sometimes you got the impression that he was much older than his twenty-eight or so years, definitely much older than his fellow turian Spectre.

"Had to be you," he agreed. "But hopefully you'll be safely stowed away on the ship, not down on the field in scything range of those synthetic monsters."

"Yes," sniffed Jaelen. "Am scientist—not a fighter."

Cloud then turned to Rentea and smiled at her next. Rentea brushed past her boyfriend and gave the Spectre a tight hug.

"And I'll be your Chief Medical Officer," Rentea told her newly-minted commanding officer. "Given my previous position as the Deputy CMO on the Hippocrates and the role I played aboard that death trap, I was also one of the Council's first pick."

Cloud pulled away and nodded lightly. When Rentea had first met him, she'd distrusted the blue-eyed Spectre. He'd coldly brushed away Jaelen's concerns and inquiries regarding his late brother and had displayed a single-minded focus on completing the mission. She hadn't liked him one bit, regarding him as yet another gun-slinging, trigger-happy council lackey who only cared about the mission, who couldn't give two shits about the people that he'd drag along with him.

Later on, as Rentea got to know him a bit, she realized that her initial assessment hadn't been completely fair. He _was_ mission-oriented, moreso than his turian peer and even the former N7 Spectre, but he didn't do so at cost to the people around him.

He had proved that all the times he'd chosen to undergo solo operations aboard the ship instead of forcing the survivors to assist him, when he'd desperately tried to save that Jaeger who lost his arm, and when he'd willingly opted to stay behind to defend the corvette from the Chimera, before he'd known that Mardinus and Barthilas had already elected to make that sacrifice.

But he also had a darker side, a side that Rentea had glimpsed when he'd shot the late Captain Farragut in the head for threatening that female technician. He might have had a good heart beneath all that ice, but ice was still ice – when it got cold enough, it'd kill.

"And we couldn't have asked for a better one," Cloud replied. "There's no one else that I'd rather trust with the lives of my men."

Rentea smiled and nodded at the Spectre. Off to the side of the room, Rayla finally pushed herself off from the bed that she'd been seated at and confidently sauntered over to stand in front of the Spectre.

"Lieutenant Rayla T'lana, Asari Special Operations Division," she saluted smartly. Every last trace of arrogance and flirtatiousness had been wiped clean off of her sister's face to be replaced with business and professionalism.

The Spectre nodded and pulled up something on his omni-tool. "Ah, you must be the asari commando that the council told me about. Rentea's sister, right?"

"Older sister, by a few decades give or take," Rayla shrugged. "Asari High Command and the Council cleared me for 'compassionate leave', as long as my sister is on this mission."

Cloud nodded appreciatively. "Biotic capabilities in the 90th percentile range for asari commandos, specializations in assault rifles and sniper rifles, eighty-seven years of combat experience, and specialized training in HVT retrieval and protection, counter-terrorism, and long-range and deep-ground surveillance, correct?"

"Yes," blinked Rayla. She began to drop her mask of professionalism and the slightest of smiles began to tug at the corners of her mouth. "I've heard you're an accomplished biotic yourself, half the girls in my division are still talking about your stunt on Lusia—" she grinned.

"—How's your hand-to-hand?" Cloud interjected, cutting her off mid-sentence.

"I'm sorry?" Rayla asked.

"How's your hand-to-hand?" he repeated. "Your CV mostly highlights your long-range accomplishments. I want to know how your hand-to-hand is, how well you do in ship and building clearances, your CV doesn't say anything about you in that regard."

"D-d-decent, I suppose," Rayla stuttered. "I've done counter-terrorism in spaceports and such, and during the Reaper War I did wetwork on—"

Cloud made a note on his omni-tool. "I'm sorry if it seems like I doubt your capabilities, Lieutenant T'lana, but these creatures are more dangerous than anything anyone in the galaxy has ever seen bsefore, especially in close quarters."

He took a step closer and gently placed one hand on her shoulder. "They make the husks and the brutes you fought during the Reaper War look like 2-bit bad guys from some shitty video game. I need you to be at the top of you game, I don't want you to get hurt."

Rayla stood in slight shock as the Spectre typed in a few more things on his omni-tool. "Report to Captain Murgen on Deck 4, the Jaegers specialize heavily in close-quarters combat, hand-to-hand, and ship and building clearances, they'll get you up to scratch in no time."

He steered the centuries-old asari commando towards the door. Rentea and Jaelen could both barely withhold their laughter. He was right though, Rayla wasn't the best close-quarters combatant – she relied on her marksmanship expertise to keep targets at range, and then on her biotics and the brute force that it allowed her to deal with anything that did manage to slip by.

"Consider this a request, not an order," Cloud added. "A minimum of three hours a day until we hit Anhur and Captain Murgen gives you the green light. If you want, they have a damn good Biotic Specialist you can spar with."

Rayla tilted her head to the side. _"_ How about you, Spectre? Wouldn't you make a better practice partner given your experience?" She asked innocently.

To Rentea's quiet amusement, it didn't look like he was biting. "I'll do my best to make some time, but my new duties might make that hard. Report to Deck 4, Lieutenant, I'll join you in a bit," he finished sternly.

Rentea and Jaelen both shared one last smile as they watched Rayla unwillingly exit the medical bay.

"How could you be so sure that she is inept at close-quarters combat?" Jaelen asked.

Cloud looked up and ticked his eyebrows up. "Hmm? Oh, I just contacted a few of her fellow commandos and asked about her, plus I was reading through all her mission reports via the Spectre Database. I didn't get through most of it yet but the ones I did read tend to indicate she tends to avoid fighting in close-quarters—."

The salarian's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "That's quite the detective work, Spectre—"

"—and she didn't have any scars or bruising on her hands, nor did she have a combat knife anywhere on her armor, nor did she ever certify any higher than basic hand-to-hand in training whereas she did so in her weapon specializations and—"

Jaelen held up his hand and the normally tight-lipped Spectre snapped his mouth shut. "I see, I see! We did not mean to question your judgment, we were only curious! You sure you're not half-salarian?"

Cloud sighed and rubbed his jaw with his hand. "I know, Jaelen. Sorry, I'm just a bit nervous, first command and all. I don't want to lose anyone because of something I overlooked, especially Rentea's sister."

Rentea made her way over to him and gave him an affectionate pat on the chest. "Rayla's been an asari commando for almost a century, Cloud. She survived the Reaper War, my sister knows how to take care of herself."

He nodded and swallowed. "I know, thanks Rentea."

"You'll do fine," Jaelen smiled. "There's no one else we'd rather have lead us."

The corners of the Spectre's mouth twitched upwards in the smallest of smiles and his look softened at our words. He'd be okay.

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 4, Marine Quarters_

 _Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Corpsman Vonderrius Flyssander)_

"Gotta say, it's definitely a bit weird serving in a cross-species environment after half a decade in the Marine Corps," Jay quipped from his bunk. The short, stocky marine had one leg cocked up while the other hung haphazardly off the side of his bed, inconveniently occupying the airspace of the bunk below him that Fly was currently lying in. Fly brushed it away, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

"Aliens will be a catwalk compared to serving with your smelly ass," he grumbled.

"Speaking of…" Jay trailed off. The marine stood up and watched as an asari in tight-black commando leathers entered the barracks and headed straight for the captain, her head held high, oblivious of the stares that she was currently getting from the primarily male marine population.

"You're a pig, Jay," Soph said tiredly. The tech specialist was currently fiddling with her omni-tool on the bunk across from him, coming up with a new sabotage program at the behest of their captain.

A pair of booted footsteps drew the attention of the three marines.

"Am I going to need to have an alien sensitivity and sexual harassment talk with you, corporal?" sighed Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton. His mechanical prosthetic whirred beneath his armor as he crossed his arms. Beside him Gunnery Chief Rakiharu Kinzo shook his head disapprovingly at his tattooed subordinate.

Jay jumped up off his bunk and saluted. "Sir, no sir!"

Fly grinned as Jay sweated in place. The corpsman had very few pleasures left in life – watching his fellow squadmate get shit on was currently in first place. "Sir, who's the commando?" Fly inquired.

Accer looked at the asari who was now currently in a discussion with Captain Murgen. "The commando is Lieutenant Rayla T'lana, sister of our CMO, Rentea T'lana. We just received notice from Cloud asking for her to be included in our upcoming drills down on Deck 5, and to help her brush up on her close-quarters combat."

"Dibs," Jay quickly called out. We all shot him a venomous look and the already-short marine shrank a few more inches.

"We're going to start her off with Soph and then probably Second Lieutenant Chang, then once she's comfortable we'll put her up against larger, bigger opponents," corrected Accer.

"Ouch, looks like you're out of luck, Jay," quipped Soph. We all chuckled as the short marine bristled in annoyance.

"Don't forget, she's an asari commando who fought during the fucking _Reaper War_. I'm not sure if there's even anything we _could_ teach her," added Accer.

Fly looked around the room, then notice something peculiar. He nodded at Rake to grab his attention.

"Chief, where's Gunnery Chief Teewin?" the corpsman inquired.

"Down in Deck Five already, he's putting that Verus kid through his paces," replied Rake.

"The one that was aboard the Hippocrates? The turian?" Jay asked.

The Jaeger nodded. "The one who probably still has the turian equivalent of acne still on his plates. Teewin says he's damn good though. The kid fought with the Spectres after we got the shit kicked out of us back in the Hippocrates' engine room and apparently did a bunch of cool shit."

Soph got up from her bunk and nodded in the direction of the doors. "Speaking of, there's the fearless commander now," she pointed out.

We watched as the familiar silhouette of our raven-haired commander walk silently through the doors like a ghost. His skin was pale – paler than we all remembered, the angry red scar on his right cheek only serving to enhance how ashen his skin now looked, but his eyes were as bright and cold as ever. It was hard to tell through his armor, but from the looks of his face he seemed to have lost a few pounds.

"Soph, you're drooling," teased Jay. Sophia glared at the marine and threw her pillow at him.

Fly watched as nearly every Jaeger in the room turned to silently appraise him. Those who had served with him and seen him in action aboard the Hippocrates merely nodded, while those who had been stuck on the Excalibur took a moment to study the man.

All three of the Spectres that they'd met were each undeniably deadly in their own right. The former N7, Percival, was renowned in the Systems Alliance for his actions at Bahak, and despite his friendly, open demeanor had proved himself a vicious combatant, especially during the machine room and their fight to the bridge.

The turian, Cade, was equally deadly, if not more so. Young and a bit brash, Fly had at first considered him nothing more than another boisterous turian operative with good aim, but that was before he'd seen Cade fight. The turian Spectre was crafty and sneaky, striking from afar with his prized Black Widow before using his booster jets to maneuver in close to eliminate the enemy. Over the course of the events aboard the ship, all of the marines had developed a healthy sense of respect for the turian Spectre that only tripled once they'd found out about his role in the Palaven Rebellions.

But Cloud? The stalwart biotic may have been silent out of combat, but in combat his actions made him the loudest person in the room. He fought with a level of cunning, skill, and viciousness that neither of his two fellow Spectres could never hope to match, combining biotics, gunfire, and knife-work into a dance that rarely ever allowed his fellow teammates to be anything more than clean-up. There had been dozens of times where Fly had witnessed him dispatch a saboteur and then silently gave thanks that Cloud was on their side.

The Spectre moved up and shared a few quiet words with the captain and the asari commando. After that he turned around and made his way towards us.

He grinned at Accer and pulled the young biotic into a tight hug. "You get a chance to practice with that amp yet?"

"A couple of times," laughed the biotic Jaeger. "Can't wait to start cranking out Singularities. This thing must have cost you a small fortune."

The Spectre shrugged. "Technically a bunch of Terminus pirates and a few gang-leaders paid for it. Where's Teewin?"

"Training the turian kid," replied Jay.

"Galen Verus?" Cloud asked.

"That's the one."

The Spectre nodded in surprise. "He's a good kid and a damn good fighter. We'll need him where we're going."

"There's going to be a whole planet-full of those creatures where we're going," shuddered Soph.

Cloud sighed and rubbed his brow. "I know, I'd hoped that we'd seen the last of them after the Hippocrates, but it doesn't look like we'll have such luck. Besides, there may still be survivors down on Anhur, we can't just leave them."

"We know, we all loved your little speech. We've got your back, Cloud," Rake assured him.

He smiled slightly and nodded at each of us. "Thanks," he replied. "I just hope your faith isn't misplaced."

"Don't you worry about us," Accer added. "Overwhelming odds, a rogue fleet, this is the shit I became a Jaeger for."

Cloud smiled appreciatively. "Thanks for the support. Listen, I've got to touch base with a couple more departments. If there's anything you need, don't be afraid to ring me directly, got it?"

"You got it, boss man," Jay quipped.

He nodded and turned away, slipping quietly out of the barracks and down the hall towards engineering. Sometimes it was hard to believe that just a few months ago, Fly was just another Corpsman attached to a marine platoon, doing combat patrols and squaring off against the occasional raider or pirate.

Now, he had fought against a horde of terrifying synthetic monsters, been honorably made a Jaeger, and was currently following four of the best Spectres that the Council had ever inducted on a mission to find a rogue fleet, save an entire planet, and stop a coalition of saboteurs from turning everyone in the galaxy into more of those salivating, red-eyed creatures.

If someone had told Vonderrius Flyssander eight years ago that he'd be in this situation, wearing the iconic black armor of the Jaegers and fighting beside some of the galaxy's greatest Spectres and not hauling hay on his parents farm, well, he'd have in no uncertain terms told them to stop sucking the glass dick.

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 4, Engineering_

 _Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Drive Core Technician Camilla Martell)_

" _I'd just feel a lot better if you spent a few hours drilling with it before we reach Anhur,"_ muttered Cade over her radio. The flanging of his normally up-beat voice drooped ever so slightly, making Camilla feel slightly heartbroken at having to defer his idea for the fifth time.

" _El cariño,_ I told you, I don't know if I have time. I need to familiarize myself with the new configurations they made to the drive core and the engines," she told him. "Besides, I'm not even sure I'll even be on the ground."

" _It never hurts to be prepared, plus you have the highest tech and combat scores out of all the engineers on the ship. If we do end up needing someone down here, it'll probably be you…"_ the turian replied.

Camilla sighed and rubbed her eyes. She wasn't willing to risk this turning into a fight, especially not so soon after she'd finally gotten a chance to see him in person. " _Dios mio,_ alright, how about I give you two hours tonight after dinner?"

" _Already paged Accer, he's pretty good with the N7 Hurricane,"_ Cade replied. " _And maybe afterwards we can discuss dessert..."_

The technician glanced up in alarm at the massive figure leaning on the railing in front of her, if he'd heard the turians words, he was making no indication that he'd done so.

"H-h-how about Elektra? I saw an N7 Hurricane strapped to her back, and aren't M-9 Tempests easier to use?" Camilla stuttered. The figure in front of her crossed his arms and starred silently at her.

" _That she-beast? Spirits no. I can't risk you ending up like her – or worse, being friends with her. Also the N7 Hurricane is standard-issue for the Jaegers aboard this ship. If you lose or drop your weapon down on Anhur, at least you'll know how to use the replacement,"_ her boyfriend replied.

Camilla pursed her lips and jumped at the chance to shift the conversation away from the line it'd taken prior and onto Elektra. The female Spectre has been… unexpectedly glamorous. Camilla had been hoping to get a chance to talk to her later, maybe figure out how she did her nails or the shampoo she used to make her hair shine like that.

"So what's the deal with her and Cloud? You've made it pretty clear that you hate her, but you haven't mentioned why."

Cade gave a long, sad sigh over the radio, and when he replied he sounded almost like a completely different turian.

" _It's a long story, one that I'm not sure is mine to tell. Let's just say that before Cloud joined the Spectres he was involved in some funny business and she screwed him over."_

"Oh my gosh," gasped Camilla. "He always seems so polite around her, and from what I've seen she's always wheedling up to him, I thought they were just exes or something."

" _They have… history,"_ Cade voiced awkwardly. " _But anyways, don't tell him I said anything. You've seen how he is, I'm never sure how he feels about things like that getting out. Can't be good though."_

"My lips are sealed," Camilla assured the turian.

" _Darn… anyways, tonight after dinner?"_

"It's a date," the technician replied happily. She hadn't gotten to seen him much on the Citadel and was looking to finally spending some time with her favourite turian.

" _Bring your gun… You're great with the plasma shotgun, babe, but on Palaven they say that the hunter who knows only the spear soon starves,"_

Camilla smiled and rolled her eyes at the turian proverb that the Spectre had likely just come up with on the spot. "Okay, whatever you say. Bye"

" _Bye dear,"_ Cade replied in farewell before disconnecting the channel.

Camilla also disconnected the channel and sighed happily. Growing up she'd heard stories of the tall, shark-toothed military species with their ruthlessness and their distinctive flanging voice. Fighting the people of her father to a stand-still back during the Krogan Rebellions, deploying the Genophage, the First Contact War, and then stalling the Reapers in the Trebia System during the Reaper War, Camilla had been taught to respect and fear the turians long before she'd ever met one.

The first ones she'd met had fit the expectations crafted by her father. A turian cruiser hovering over New Mindoir, rows of straight-backed soldiers exiting shuttles with precision and poise, looking every bit as deadly as her father had described. Camilla had never seen anything so alien – the way their mandibles shifted when they talked, their beautiful clan markings, and even the distinct flanging of their voices – everything about them.

And she had feared them at first. Feared their teeth, their hawk-like eyes, and the way that they stared at everyone like a hungry falcon would stare at a jackrabbit. Their professionalism and their military bearing only added to their fearsomeness.

That was before she'd ran into a Cade. Smooth-talking, flirtatious, and funny, Cade had broken every stereotype about turians that she'd ever been exposed to. The first time they'd ran into each other, Camilla had very nearly had a heart-attack after she realized that the turian understood Spanish. The next time it was to save her life, and she had repayed him by nearly melting his face off with the Geth Plasma Shotgun her father had given her.

Aside from that rocky start, Camilla soon grew to appreciate the bickering that Cade had engaged her in aboard the Hippocrates. It had kept her distracted from the horrors that they had encountered and from feeling the loss of her friends. He'd actually saved her at least three times counting the time he'd thrown himself on top of her and shielded her from the weapons-fire of a jumpy crewmember. Before she knew it, she was head over heels.

The tattoo also didn't hurt, nor did the blue clan-markings and the blue eyes. The lighter skin tone definitely also helped to make him look more friendly and approachable when compared to his darker-skinned cousins.

A gruff, deep voice jolted Camilla out of her thoughts. She'd been so engrossed in thinking about Cade that she'd completely forgotten that she currently had company.

"Your boyfriend's right you know," grumbled her father. The massive krogan pushed himself up off of the railing he'd been sitting beside and stomped his way over towards her, shaking the entire engineering deck and attracting the glances of several of her fellow technicians.

"I've turned you into an artist with that shotgun, but the Alliance shipped you off before I could teach you to fight with something else," Garm grunted.

Camilla blew an errant strand of hair from in front of her face and made a few more calculations on her omni-tool. "Tthe shotgun you gave me works just fine, and I'm wearing much better armor than I did aboard the Hippocrates. Did you also forget that I have nearly a dozen combat programs stored in my omni-tool?"

Urdnot Garm scoffed and held out a beefy hand, staring at his daughter with both his good eye and his dead one. With a sigh, Camilla pulled the insect-like shotgun from behind her back and handed it to her father.

The krogan activated it and sighted it up. He flipped it around to check for damages and checked the plasma core before deactivating it and handing it back.

"At least you're not slacking on the maintenance," he grumbled.

Camilla smiled at her father. "Of course, or else you'd never let me hear the end of it," she said playfully.

Garm crossed his arms and sighed. "I remember when I found that thing. A pack of Brutes had just ripped apart a pair of Geth Primes during the final push, Wrex was nowhere to be seen and they were eyeing me next," he rasped, his good eye glazing over as he recounted those events.

"I fired my shotgun but the heatsink ran hot after four rounds, barely killed the first Brute. That left three more and a Banshee that suddenly appeared out of thin air on my right. I tossed the shotgun and began to run—,"

Camilla smiled at her father, she'd heard this story at least once a year during the annual celebration of the ending of the Reaper Wars and dozens of times on her father's birthday. "And that's when you tripped over the Spitfire. You picked it up and checked the charge, it was full—"

"—And then I killed every last Reaper abomination in a fifty-yard radius, and then I spat on their corpses and took their fingers as trophies!" Garm finished loudly. He smacked a meaty fist against his chestplate, the sound echoing across the engine room and causing a pair of technicians nearby to jump up in fright.

Urdnot Garm calmed himself down and looked back down at his daughter, who was still smiling at his enthusiastic retelling of the Battle of Earth. He remembered when he found her all those years ago at that shelter back on New Mindoir.

Shepard may have cured the genophage, but Urdnot Garm's mate had taken her own life nearly a century before it happened, the shame of her stillbirths being too much to bear. Unlike many krogan, Garm had never taken another mate after her – had resigned himself to never knowing how it felt to hold his own child in his arms.

But that was before he'd found Camilla. Garm remembered the way that she'd laughed when he picked her up, the way her big, brown eyes hadn't shirked from his dead one, and the way she'd grabbed at his headplate fearlessly. The thought of someone, a _turian_ no less, taking his daughter away from him shook him more than he'd admit. At least this particular turian could fight.

"The point is," he finished, "it doesn't hurt to have a back-up weapon that doesn't overheat after five shots."

Camilla nodded and grabbed her father's hands. Hers were nearly completely engulfed by the scaly, scarred, three-fingered ones that her adoptive father possessed.

"I promise, _if_ you promise to sit down with Cade and chat with him like civilized individuals instead of attacking him like you did Cloud," Camilla said sternly. She hadn't quite forgiven her father for his bull-headed stunt, not completely Cade for standing by, although to be fair she ought not to have expected him to know that Garm was her father.

Garm's good eye flitted innocently up towards hers. "Is that the pale, human one?"

" _Yes,_ " she said firmly. "Cade told me he still has bruises on his chest."

The krogan grunted. "At least that one can take a few hits. I don't want my daughter sneaking around with a _pansy_."

Camilla rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Honestly dad, if you'd seen Cade fight aboard the Hippocrates, you'd know that he's anything but."

"We'll see," Garm grumbled. "You sure it's not too late to go with the other one?"

"Dad!"

The doors slid open and in walked the aforementioned Spectre, his customary half-grimace plastered on his face. When Camilla had first met Cloud, she had at first thought him to be part of some sort of advanced Systems Alliance android soldier program for all the emotion he showed, even compared to Cade – a member of a species that lacked almost any motor control over their facial expressions. Those eyes had looked right through her rather than at her, and Camilla had recalled that she'd been more than a bit scared of him. He'd seemed every bit as frightening and alien as those things aboard the ship.

But that was before they'd fought together, and before she'd learned that underneath that icy façade he seemed to have a good heart, always the first to put himself in harm's way, or the first to confront a danger. Without him, Cade, nor Percival, Camilla would have happily bet that everyone would have died aboard the Hippocrates.

"Good to see you, captain!" Camilla smiled. She walked up and pulled the Spectre into a hug that he returned. "Checking on the trenches?"

"Kind of, and technically I'm not a captain," he replied. "How are you settling in?"

She looked at her father, then at some of the other members of the engineering team working at various consoles. Other than her they'd all been a part of the original crew of the Excalibur. When she'd transferred over after the Hippocrates, all of them had gone out of their way to make her feel at home, avoiding asking her questions about her time aboard the doomed ship.

"Good, they've got us all bunking up on the second deck along with the command crew rather than the marines, which honestly is a relief. You wouldn't believe how badly some jarheads snore," she assured him.

He gave a light smile, as if to say that he understood. "Durandal-class Heavy Frigates are designed to comfortably house up to two platoons of marines, but you could squeeze in a whole company if you wanted to."

"Well thank god we've only got the Jaegers then, although Gunnery Chief Teewin sure looks like he could pick up the slack for a whole company."

Cloud chuckled and nodded his head in agreement, the big Jaeger was nearly six-and-a-half feet tall.

He then turned his stare onto her father. "How are you settling in, Urdnot Garm?"

"Good," her father grunted. Garm walked up so that he was a few inches away from the Spectre and towering completely over him, engulfing the human in his shadow. Camilla rolled her eyes and silently cursed her dad and cursed krogan machismo. He could be such a child sometimes, she only hoped that Cloud understood that this was actually her dad's way of joking around, and that he wasn't actually trying to pick a fight.

He didn't back away, instead he merely nodded at the large krogan. "With you, Private Verus, and Lieutenant T'lana on board, we've got the makings of a damn good specialist support team for when Spectres Kitiarian, Percival and I are otherwise pre-occupied. Is that Geth Spitfire your weapon of choice?" he gestured at the massive geth-made machine gun strapped to his back.

"I helped put the words 'suppressive fire' in the krogan dictionary," Garm rumbled ominously.

Cloud nodded appreciatively and looked up once more at the both of us, "I've got to go share a few words with Lieutenant Halvarsson. I'll catch you both at dinner, alright? And if there's anything you two need, let me know."

"Sure," Camilla replied. Her father merely grunted in the affirmative.

The Spectre moved past Garm, shouldering him aside in the process. As he made his way deeper into engineering, toward the drive core, Garm stared forlornly at the Spectre with his one good eye.

He turned to his daughter. "Do you think he'd want to try out my Spitfire?" he asked.

* * *

 _March 12_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 4, Engineering_

 _Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Flight Lieutenant Valeria Fyordinarova)_

"What is a ten-letter word for "to make or declare holy or divine""?

Val blew another bubble with the wad of standard-issue Systems Alliance Navy chewing gum that she'd been working on for the past half-hour. The taste, strawberry lime, had evaporated some time ago, leaving it a tasteless, bland mass of polymers that served no purpose other than to past the time by allowing her to try to beat her previous bubble-size record while she kept an eye out for any snags or complications on their journey through the relay.

"Hmm, consecrate?" she suggested.

In the navigator's seat to her left, Second Lieutenant Ronald Lee scribbled something into an old crossword book. "C, o, n… yeah, it fits, thanks Val."

"No problem. By the way, there's two 'C's…"

Naviator Lee stared dumbly at his crossword. "Oh…."

Val shook her head and sighed. How Ron had ever made it out of the academy – let alone find his way aboard a Systems Alliance Heavy Stealth Frigate — was an absolute mystery to the Russian pilot.

Not to say that he was bad at his job. Quite the opposite, in fact. Ronald was a gifted navigator, prone to fits of brilliance in combat situations and his simulation scores were some of the best in his class.

No, Val's disbelief in Ron's presence aboard the Excalibur stemmed from the navigator's inability to do even the simplest of tasks without muddling it up or getting side-tracked. She was sincerely impressed that he'd managed to literally find his way out the academy doors and into a frigate. The last time she'd taken him out shopping on their last shore leave for a pair of shoes, he'd disappeared when she had turned around for one second to look at a nice pair of pumps. She'd found him two hours later sitting in a vape store looking at the smoke.

Cade liked to joke that the navigator was a few bullets short of a full clip. Percival believed that it was all an act for the benefit of the crew. Either way, it was a quirk that Val had long gotten used to in her navigator.

It was getting to be a bit late. Dinner had ended some time ago the majority of the crew were already getting ready for the sleep cycle. The night-shift were already out and about. Val herself would be getting replaced with one of her co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant Chan, one of the shuttle pilots aboard the Excalibur.

Although Flight Lieutenant Chan was a much better shuttle pilot than he was a frigate pilot, he would nonetheless do in a pinch, at least until it was her shift again. To most of the crew she was still the de-facto main pilot of the Excalibur, something that Chan never disputed nor tried to displace. To her surprise, Spectre Operative Cloud had also been listed as an emergency pilot for the Excalibur, in the event that both her and Chan were incapacitated.

A set of footsteps behind her caught her attention, prompting Val to swing her chair around. To her surprise it was the Spectre himself, marching towards her, already clad in full armor. Val's heart got caught in her throat and she very nearly swallowed the gum that she'd been chewing. Was it just her or did he looked more tired than usual?

He moved up to stand beside her and looked out the cockpit. Outside the ship, ribbons of blue and white streaked past them as they travelled from the one of the mass relays in the Serpent Nebula to the relay in the Arrae System. They stood in silence for a moment, him staring out while Val chewed her gum, blowing yet another bubble.

Ronald suddenly got up and slammed his crossword book loudly down onto the console, causing Val to pop her bubble in alarm and Cloud's hand to fly to the Predator holstered at his waist.

"I've got to go to the bathroom," he announced abruptly. "Val, if you manage to figure out an eight-letter word for the procurer of illicit goods please let me know."

He got up and waddled out of the flight deck, leaving Val alone with the Spectre. Together they passed a few more moments in companionable silence.

"Smuggler," Cloud suddenly said. "The word the good navigator is looking for is 'smuggler'."

Val took it as an invitation to engage. She hadn't seen the Spectre much while they were all docked onboard the Citadel. He was still currently gazing out of the cockpit, seemingly entranced by the swirl of colors and light. Now that Val could get a closer look, he did indeed seem more pale and gaunt than he had prior.

"Taken down a lot of smugglers, have you?" she quipped.

The Spectre turned and gave her a peculiar look. She hadn't had a chance to contact him during their time on the Citadel, what with all the debriefings, briefings, and oaths of secrecy that she'd been subjected to. Val suspected that it hadn't been cakewalk for Cloud either, seeing as all that cloak-and-dagger stuff came with the territory of being in the famed Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. In fact, the only time she'd seen him was just as they were scheduled to leave the Citadel. He'd been standing beside his fellow Spectre and she'd waved at him. He'd waved back.

Cloud shrugged his shoulders and ticked the corners of his mouth upwards. "Sure, let's go with that."

Val felt a light sweat break out on the back of her neck as the silence was replaced with something a bit more awkward. She looked at him, desperately racking her brain for something to talk about, anything to bridge the rift that was slowly growing between them. What was there to say? That he looked a bit more pale and gaunt than usual? That he'd shaved since she'd last seen him?

"Have you had trouble sleeping or something? You look like shit," she spurted out automatically. As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted saying them. Who on earth wanted to be told that they looked like shit? Val cursed inwardly and hoped that she hadn't turned him off with her unflattering proclamation. She held her breath and awaited the worst.

But to her surprise, he simply let out a dry little laugh. "Thank you, Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova. And yeah, if you must know I've had some trouble sleeping these last few weeks."

Val breathed a sigh of relief and settled back down. "Is it still about the Hippocrates?" she asked.

He nodded and adopted what Val now considered to be his standard pose – arms crossed tightly over his chest, the slight tightening at the jaw, eyes gazing off into the distance. It was peculiar how quickly he'd retreat into that position every time someone touched upon something particularly sensitive to him. He was like a turtle in that regard.

"Yeah, and not just the Hippocrates I guess," he shrugged, "but also this mission, the defection, these monsters. I can feel the weight of all these lives depending on us, crushing us. I'm not sure if I can even move beneath it, let alone fight."

Val scoffed. "Well, it's not like you have a choice. Like it or not we're the ones leading the charge, and you're the one leading us. We don't get to pick the stories we're a part of, no matter how badly we want to sometimes. All we can do is keep on walking down the path and hope that the path ends before we do."

He laughed and Val began to feel the awkward rift between them slowly start to evaporate. Now they were just two soldiers talking instead of the awkward facsimile she'd created of them inside her own head.

"Didn't know you could wax so poetically, Flight Lieutenant. In my opinion you missed your calling. You're wasted in the Systems Alliance," he chuckled.

To be honest, Val had never wanted to join the Systems Alliance. She'd gone to university for art literature and had decided that she'd rather die than stay trapped on Terra Nova in some desk job for a greeting card company—or worse, for an art museum. The Systems Alliance had been the only ones willing to pay her to see the galaxy. Paired with excellent entrance scores and stellar simulation records, Valeria Fyordinarova soon found herself at the helm of a Systems Alliance Heavy Stealth Frigate, with no intention of ever going back.

Val could buy the idea that it was just the apprehension and consternation towards the mission at hand simply getting to the Spectre. She hadn't actually been aboard the Hippocrates. She'd seen the mission records, yeah. She had shuddered at them and had a few nightmares the proceeding nights but she hadn't actually been there, and so she couldn't speak towards how traumatizing the event could actually be. Nonetheless, she tried her best ease the Spectre's mind.

"We all believe in you, you know," she began quietly. "What you said over the channel? To the crew? About how everyone in the galaxy was depending on us? Well, they believe every word you said. They believe that freedom and safety is something that has to be continuously fought for and they believe that you're the one who is going to lead us to victory. They're ready to follow you through the gates of Hell themselves."

He smiled a bit more broadly that time and Val at last felt like she'd said something right. "Truth be told I'd rather have you fly us through, Flight Lieutenant," he replied.

He placed his hands on the headrest of her seat and continued to stare out the cockpit, into the sea of bright colors. Watching a relay transit could actually be very soothing, now that Val thought about it.

"And if you're having trouble sleeping, I've got some Thessian fruit tea that's supposed to work just like chamomile," she offered.

He sighed contently and nodded. "That'd be nice, Val."


	28. Chapter 28 - Pride and Prejudice

**Chapter 28 – Pride and Prejudice**

* * *

 _March 13_ _th_ _, 2211. Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Officer's Quarters – Room C_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

 _The sun rose over a broken and scarred landscape. The towers had been cut down like wheat beneath the scythe or soldiers beneath the blade. Where they once stood tall and proud, now they lay broken and twisted. Now they were the fingers of a dying man, curling up towards the heavens in one final plea for mercy._

 _And in the sky there were shadows, shadows with many arms and angry red eyes. From the heavens they looked down at what they had done, doing so silently, ominously, displaying not a single drop of satisfaction, remorse, or guilt at their act of destruction or for the lives that they had taken. They simply watched and watched and watched._

 _The pain that should have been there, wasn't. I coughed and pushed myself up from the smoking ruins of the silver road on which I had fallen. Hot air radiated from the road, covering everything in a ghastly shimmer. Everywhere around me lay the bodies of the strange, beautiful people whose language I could not understand. Some lay curled around loved ones, while others had passed in poses of extreme agony. Even more were burnt beyond recognition, no longer beautiful, no longer laughing._

 _No one was spared. Not the men, not the women, and most certainly not the children. Tears slid down my cheeks but I brushed them away. I drove an angry fist into the ground and tried to yell but no sound came out. Suddenly a small pair of hands wrapped themselves around my face and tilted my head upwards. It was the young girl._

 _Her blue skin was ashen and her glowing, white eyes seemed a little bit duller, a little less bright, but otherwise she didn't seem to have any apparent wounds. She said something urgently to me in her musical language that I did not understand and tugged my face once more. I think she wanted me to stand up. I could. I could do that._

 _I staggered to my feet and looked around me, but by the looks of it no one else other than the two of us had survived. Off in the distance I could hear screams and shouts coming from deeper within the city. The shadows lingered overhead, watching and judging._

 _The girl tugged at my hand and babbled frantically in her language, pulling me towards the city. She kept repeating a single word._

 _I nodded to her and scooped her up. She squeaked in pain as I crushed her against my armored chest just little bit too hard. Wait… armor? Wear had that come from? Had I been wearing it before? I looked down and for the first time noticed that I was completely clad in my armor, how strange._

 _I ran down the silver road headed towards the screaming city. The girl kept talking as I ran, and I'd do my best to smile and nod but otherwise I didn't waste my breath._

 _When we finally reached the screaming city I paused, stunned by the chaos and the destruction currently unfolding before me._

 _Survivors screamed in pain, agony, and fear as they ran around looking for loved ones or for shelter. Around me I could hear the snarls and the chittering of their hunters – cruel, twisted creatures that killed and killed and killed. Those that they didn't kill were dragged away or rendered unconscious. They seemed to be collecting many of them._

 _Some of the hunters bore weapons and fired at the beautiful people while others merely used their claws. They came in several different shapes and sizes. Some had tails and some had too many arms while others had too many legs. Some had too many teeth and some had too many eyes while some didn't have enough of either or anything at all where there should have been such features. All of them were, however, were hunters, killers, and their prey was all around them._

 _I ducked into an alley, avoiding a large, four-armed synthetic monstrosity. I gently rubbed the back of the young girl to try to get her whimpers to subside while I did my best not to make a sound. Quietly, we slipped around through a series of small and thankfully empty streets and rejoined the main road somewhere further down, which the creatures had already moved away from._

 _She tugged at my face with one hand and pointed at a broken tower with another, jabbering frantically in her lyrical tongue._

 _I followed her finger and made my way across the road towards the building, careful to keep my eyes peeled for any of the creatures nearby. I didn't fancy fighting any of them, especially since I hadn't had a clue what they were capable of, or how hard they were to kill. I wish I had my pistol or my Snakebite on me. If one of those things showed up I'd have to put the little girl down in order to use my biotics._

 _As I got closer I could see that there were a number of bodies lying around the entrance. Some of them were torn apart while others looked like they'd simply fallen where they'd been standing when the invaders came, pools of bluish-grey blood blossoming beneath them. I felt a chill run down my spine as a thought suddenly occurred to me. It was like watching a movie. All the events you had witnessed had undoubtedly lead up to this one moment. You knew it was going to happen, even if you didn't want it to, and yet there was nothing you could do to stop it because the movie has already been shot, the ending pre-decided, and no amount of hoping or praying was going to change what you were going to see next._

 _The little girl began pointing at one of the facedown bodies on the ground and started shrieking. I tried to calm her down, my eyes tracking the streets for anything that might hear her, but she wouldn't have it. She beat on my chest and pointed at the ground, demanding to be let down, all the while talking rapidly in her alien tongue._

 _I gently set her down and watched as she ran to the body and flipped it over, revealing a blue-skinned female with a series of terrible rends across her neck and chest that oozed blue blood. My eyes flew wide at the sight of those familiar-looking wounds and for a moment I was frozen in place, unable to speak, unable to move._

 _The little girl knelt down and pressed her face into the bloody chest of the dead alien female, sobbing. Although I still couldn't understand a single word she said, crying was still something that was universally understood in nearly every single species. My muscles finally unfroze and I walked over to gently kneel beside her, placing one hand on her shoulder as she mourned the dead._

" _You can save us," she suddenly whispered._

 _My eyes went wide and I stared at her in surprise. I could understand her. I could understand what she was saying._

 _The little girl removed her face from the dead woman's chest and turned to face me. Her youthful features were now hidden beneath a fine layer of blue-ish blood, given her already blue skin a splotchy, distorted appearance and causing a few of the tendrils on her chin to stick to her cheeks, giving the appearance of blue scars on her face._

" _You can save us," she repeated, her glowing eyes beginning to glow a little bit brighter._

 _My mouth gaped open and for a moment I was rendered speechless. "How? How do I save you?" I stuttered._

 _A roar suddenly erupted behind us and I spun around, fists held out in front of me._

" _Stay behind me!" I yelled._

 _The creature was a caricature of metal and flesh, like someone had cut off bits and pieces off its body here and there and replaced them with machine. It walked on two backwards-hinged legs and in one hand it had what appeared to be some sort of cannon crafted into its arm. It's other ended in a series of long, sharp talons that were currently coated in blue blood. Behind it I could see a tail that was nothing more than a jagged, metal stump maybe an arm's length long._

 _It peered at us curiously with bright, yellow eyes, judging, gauging. I could hear the young girl whimpering behind me._

 _It opened its mouth, revealing rows of sharp, metal teeth, and howled at us._

 _I raised one hand, making the physical mnemonic necessary to conjure a Singularity, but to my horror my armor and my arm was gone. In place of it was the arm of a young boy._

 _I raised my hands and peered at them. Gone were my muscles, the scars I'd accrued on them over the years, the burn where Cade had accidentally spilled soup on me a few months ago. In their place were the undeveloped arms of a boy, no older than a toddler._

 _The creature ran at me. I couldn't fight it, instead I twisted around and moved to grab the little girl. Our only chance lay in running._

 _But she was gone too. In her place knelt a little boy kneeling over the body of a woman with long, blonde hair._

 _He looked up at me and stared at me with icy blue eyes. "You can save us," he said._

 _And then the sky darkened and the shadows came back. I heard what sounded like a thunderclap, then felt a rush of heat behind me._

 _Then the horn._

 _March 13_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Officer's Quarters – Room C_

 _Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – En-route to Gelix_

A hand grabbed my shoulder and shook me. Hard.

"Hey! Hey, wake up!" a voice hissed.

I coughed and gasped, struggling for breath and willing myself to wake up. A pair of soft hands slipped around my shoulders and pulled me up into a seated position. "You're okay... You're safe, you're on board the Excalibur," the same voice said.

I blinked blearily as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. "Oh god, Elektra?" I sputtered.

"Hey, yeah, it's me, it's just me," she said soothingly, stroking my upper back with one hand. "You're in your room on board the Excalibur. It's just us, nothing's here..."

I let out a sigh and looked around, my eyes having finally adjusted to the dark. I was in my room, one of the two-person officer rooms aboard the Excalibur. Elektra knelt beside me, clothed in a baggy old t-shirt and a pair of old running shorts. Her pistol lay on the ground beside her. She had probably been startled awake by my dreams.

My skin felt clammy with sweat and I pressed a hand to my forehead. "Jesus, what time is it," I asked.

"We're about a few hours out from Gellix," Elektra replied. "Thanks for ruining my beauty sleep by the way."

"I'm sorry, really," I apologized, sliding out of my bed and brushing past her, padding over to my small dresser where I'd chosen to store all my clothing. I grabbed a towel and began drying myself off. Even with my back turned I could feel her brown eyes drilling into the back of my head, probably staring piteously at me or some other sad shit.

"Things must have been pretty bad aboard the Hippocrates if they're giving you these kinds of nightmares," she said grimly. She rose up from where she'd been kneeling beside my bed and crossed her arms. "I don't think I've ever seen you shaken up like this before, and we've both seen each other go through some serious shit."

I tossed the towel into a basket and rubbed my face with my hands. "Yeah, but I'm getting pretty sick of it though. I'm not looking forward to meeting the Blue Suns all bleary-eyed and yawning my ass off," I grunted. I decided against changing into civilian clothes or fatigues and instead just pulled on my undersuit. I'd be spending a lot of time in it anyways over the next little while.

Elektra sighed and padded up to join me in front of her own dresser. She removed her T-shirt and shorts and also grabbed her undersuit as well, sliding one leg into it as I finished zipping up.

"Might as well get started then I guess," she huffed in annoyance. "Not like I'll be able to go back to sleep, and I'm betting you're going to want to call an early meeting anyways, am I right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, just us Spectres though. I'll take the Jaegers along when we cross-deck with the Blue Suns cruiser and I'll probably just send the rest of the crew a brief."

"Better bring along those floating specialists," she added. "You know, that young turian kid, the krogan, and the asari commando."

"Good idea," I agreed, "give everyone on the ground teams a chance to get to know each other."

She finished suiting up and grabbed her pistol. I grabbed mine as well and slotted it into a holster on my waist. Together we moved to the door. "Want to do any sparring before we wake up the guys? I could use the early morning exercise to wake up" she asked.

"Sure," I nodded. "Let's do it in full armor though, I want to get used to the weight."

"No duh," she scoffed.

* * *

 _March 13_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Briefing Room_

 _Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – En-route to Gelix_

The sparring session had done wonders for my alertness, banishing away what was left of my fatigue and making me feel refreshed and focused. When I was fighting Elektra it felt like I was fighting the residual horrors that the nightmare had left in my mind. I felt strong and confident again instead of powerless and weak like I had been in my dream.

I studied the three biographies displayed in front of me on the holo-table. They were the commanders of the Blue Suns battalion that we'd be working with. When the Council had notified us last-minute of the back-up we'd been bringing, I wonder if they somehow perhaps did not know about the history Percival shared with two of these individuals. More likely they had known and simply did not care, instead choosing to trust Percival to keep things civil and professional. Personally, had I been the one making these logistical decisions, I'd have thought twice before adding them to our roster. Professionally, however, the Blue Suns were our best choice.

The doors to the briefing room slid open and in walked Percival, already wearing his N7 armor and looking completely alert. He walked over to take his place beside me and silently peered at the biographies, one in particular, with a slight frown on his face.

No point in skirting the issue. "Is this going to be a problem?" I asked.

Percival set his jaw in the slightest of grimaces and shook his head. "Not much we can do about it. We need the Blue Suns on this one."

I tilted my head from side-to-side as I ran through my plan in my mind and estimated at the number of personnel required to pull off the mission-critical objectives. "Technically we don't, not if we're simply hunting down the ideological crazies, but I seriously doubt that we're just going to sit there and let them turn an entire colony into those damned creatures."

My friend looked away, trying his best to hide the sadness in his eyes, and nodded in agreement. "Focus on the lives we can save, not the ones we couldn't."

Everyone at some point in their lives encounters their first defining moment. It's the first time you realize that no matter how much you know or how capable you are or how much you can do there will always be a time where all of it is not enough to see you through.

It's the moment where you first fail — truly, utterly fail despite all your best efforts, intentions, and hopes. It's the moment where you're forced to really grow up, when you realize that sometimes you just can't win, and the moment when you realize the truth in the old adage 'Failure is the greatest teacher'. For Percival it was the Battle of Bahak.

I could see Percival going away in his mind and it was my job as a friend to pull him back. I grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a rough shake. "Hey! You're not going to cap these guys until _after_ we've rescued everyone and saved the day, right?" I joked.

That got a smile from him. "You doubt my professionalism? I am a Council Spectre you know."

His melancholy passed and we both merely stared at the two batarian faces prominently displayed on the holo-table. Captain Revak Ghar'aran and his younger brother Malan, the heads of the Blue Suns chapter in the Eagle Nebula. Unlike the Blue Suns of old, the present-day iteration of the Suns was run by a Board chaired by high-ranking Suns members rather than a single leader like the Blood Pack or the Eclipse were, and rumor had it that both brothers were currently holding seats.

The Butchers of Bahak.

The door to the briefing room opened up and in walked Cade, or stumbled I should say. Unlike Percival and I, the turian was clad only in his undersuit, absolutely bleary-eyed and looking as if he was fighting back a dozen yawns.

"Spirits, it's only six in the morning," he groaned. "Why would you do this to me?"

He ran the back of his hand across his eyes and blinked in confusion at the picture of the two batarians that we were looking at. "And why are you guys starting your morning by staring at a picture of two ugly-ass batarians instead of coffee?"

"They're the ones in charge of the Blue Suns battalion, and we're going to be meeting them in less than three hours," I told him.

" _Three hours!"_ Cade exclaimed. He pressed his face into both his hands to stifle a long groan. "What about them would take three hours to explain? They're currently Blue Suns, they used to be part of the Hegemony's Special Interventions Unit, and they've got four damn eyes!"

"We're also going to be fine-tuning our plan of attack, our strategy and how to proceed with our overall mission objective of finding and stopping the sabbies," Percival pointed out.

The door opened again and in walked Elektra in full armor, carrying a tray with four steaming mugs in them. Her hair was still damp and she smelled like lavender soap, indicating that she had probably decided to take one last shower after our sparring session and before we hit Anhur. Probably a smart move, we had no idea what it'd be like down there. Both Percival and I nodded in greeting while Cade merely stared at the mugs and panted heavily.

She smiled wryly and handed a mug to the turian Spectre. "Here you go, Spectre Kitiarian, I'm pretty sure this is the dextro one."

Cade grunted a wordless thank-you, grabbed the proffered cup of coffee and took a huge gulp, his mandibles flapping in relief. Elektra handed the both Percival and I two of the remaining mugs and sipped tentatively at the hot liquid, staring quietly at the profile of the two batarians before us.

The combination of the exercise and now the coffee had me positively refreshed and feeling better than I had in weeks. I was itching to get back into it now, the last vestiges of my nightmare and its effects now banished. I looked forward to one last breakfest with real food before I had to meet up with the Suns.

"Those the CO's of the Suns battalion?" Elektra asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. I pulled up a third profile and slid it beside the other two. "There is one more of them, a turian lieutenant by the name of Bastion Navarrian. Former Hierarchy soldier, thirteen years experience."

"Never heard of him," Cade commented as he continued to sip on his coffee.

Elektra squinted at Navarrian's profile. "Wow, no record of criminal activity, during his time in the military or outside of it. Not even so much as a parking ticket," she pointed out. "Nothing but some decent recommendations from his time in the Hierarchy and a few honors awards from several charitable foundations that he _regularly_ donates to. You sure this isn't fake?"

"Possible, but doubtful," I shrugged. "The Council had this vetted pretty thoroughly by our offices, Leliana herself put the dossiers together."

Elektra set down her mug and shook her head in disbelief. "What the hell is this guy doing in the Blue Suns?"

"You should take notes, Cade," Percival joked. "Maybe he'll give you some lessons on how to be a proper turian. Look, he's even been contributing to a foundation that studies turian terminal diseases such as Corpalis Syndrome for the last ten years. The only regular donation you make is a monthly subscription to Galaxy of Fantasy."

The turian Spectre scoffed and crossed his arms. "There's no way anyone is that clean. Navarrian's got skeletons in his closet, just you wait and see."

I waved away the three dossiers and pulled up a map of Osiris, the main continent of Anhur, in its place. Above it was the grid of planetary defense cannons as well as the last known positions of the rogue fleet. I highlighted two facilities – one closer to the northern tip of the continent and the other roughly in the middle.

"Dossiers aside, let's talk about what we're going to do when we hit Anhur," I began.

I tapped on the northern facility. "That's the planetary defense cannon main generator facility, or simply 'generator facility' because the name is fucking long. It's where the now-deceased STG team first picked up the distress call. Unless we take it, we're never going to be able to slip the entire Blue Suns battlegroup into Anhur's orbit and get their troops."

Percival studied the schematics and rubbed his chin. "Not a large facility, looks medium-sized, mostly passageways with a lot of intersections… If they split their forces in the halls they'd be way too open to a flanking maneuver, you only really need to hold the main generator room. They probably don't need a lot of men to defend it."

"And we don't need a lot of men to take it, either." Elektra pointed out. "A small team, half-a-dozen tops. I can't imagine there being more than forty, maybe fifty soldiers in there."

"Less," I asserted confidently. "The facility is also covered with anti-air guns, making travel by shuttle nearly impossible, they'd need about a platoon-sized force, tops. I'm thinking that Elektra and I will have to go in alone and secure the facility.

Cade's mandibles flew open and he gave me a look of supreme hurt. We always ran together.

"You're not taking me?" he asked incredulously. "The two of you against an entire platoon of soldiers? Maybe you've forgotten that we're not fighting mindless zombies anymore, Cloud. We're going to be fighting soldiers again – individuals capable of actual thought, tactics, strategies, ambushes. You can't possibly be thinking of going in just the two of you."

"Elektra and I can chain biotic detonations off of one another, and in those narrow corridors their numbers will count for nothing," I told him. Beside me Elektra stuck out her tongue at the irate turian, prompting him to flip her off. "I figured we'd split up two-by-two, with Elektra and I taking the generator while you and Percival take the satellite facility."

Cade crossed his arms and glared at the female Spectre. "You have no idea how many bad guys are hiding in there, there's no way I'm letting you just take her. I'm going with you whether you like it or not."

"As long as you don't mind being the third wheel, Kitiarian," Elektra grinned, prompting the turian to let out an angry snarl. She slipped her arm beneath mine but I shrugged it away.

Percival brushed Cade aside and tapped on the perimeter facility, highlighting the anti-air guns. "Just to be clear, with those guns in play you two are going to be looking at a superhero landing…"

Elektra and I shared a glance. "Yeah, unfortunately. That's why I didn't want to bring Cade, it'll be damn risky," I admitted.

Cade crossed his arms and gave me a firm look. "Too bad friend, you're stuck with me, superhero landing or not. There's no way I'm letting you take on a whole facility alone."

Percival glanced at Cade, then at me. "He's right, Cloud. Why don't you take Accer and his team as well? The grab pods are rated to handle the re-entry, and they've trained for it."

I shook my head vehemently. "Negative, the density of the AA guns is too high."

I pulled up a schematic of the satellite facility. Unlike the generator facility this one was much larger and much more exposed. It also lacked the power source necessary to run as many AA guns, making it more vulnerable to an aerial insertion, but it had larger corridors and more locations where an enemy force could dig in and fortify.

"The Jaegers will be accompanying you to the satellite facility, as well as the floaters. You'll go in after we've begun our assault, and with any luck they'll radio their buddies at the satellite facility to expect only a squad-sized force. You'll take one shuttle while Captain Murgen and his men go down in the grab pods. Look at the schematics, Perc, you'll definitely need the extra numbers more than I will."

Percival did as I asked, looking at it for a long minute before scratching his chin and grunting in assent. It was nearly five-times as large as the generator facility, and could ostensibly house up to a full company. "You're not wrong, but this sounds awfully like you trying to take on all the risk yourself."

"He won't be by himself, he's got me," Elektra pointed out.

"And me!" Cade interjected. "Some of us are actually good at watching his back, others are only good at stabbing it."

"Listen here you little—,"

"Enough!" I shouted. Cade and Elektra both immediately fell silent at my expletive. I very rarely raised my voice and it showed, both of them looking shocked and cowed at my loud reprimand.

I'd started to come down from the high I'd been feeling with the coffee and the training thanks to their constant bickering, snarking, and second-guessing. I'd been made agent-in-command, not them. I understood that they had problems with each other, but I'd hoped that the two of them would have had the common sense and the restraint to keep it shelved while we were busy discussing strategy.

Percival merely nodded and stayed silent. I appreciated his gesture, it'd be all too easy for him to step back into his accustomed role and shut the two of them down, but he was giving me the chance to get used to being in command and all the responsibilities that it entailed and I respected that.

"Cade, Elektra and I will orbitally-insert and take the generator facility on our own," I firmly stated. "Percival will take the Jaegers and the specialists to take the satellites back."

I pulled up a map of the Amun System, the position of the Ninth Fleet's ships, and an approach vector from the Mass Relay as one would expect.

"The Excalibur will exit the relay in stealth mode while the Suns hold position in the Crescent Nebula. Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova will take us into orbit around Anhur where we'll drop in and accomplish our missions."

I brought up a schematic of the new XM-38 Scrambler Torpedoes that the Excalibur boasted. "The Excalibur will then fire her full complement of Scramblers to cover us, which should fill the radars of the Ninth Fleet with thousands of ghost signatures for at least a few hours, hopefully that will be more than enough time to secure both facilities."

Next I flipped back to the map of the continent of Osiris. South-east of the generator facility and almost straight east of the satellite facility was the city of Alexandria. Immediately beside it bordering its east side was the river of Anubis. Slightly further east was the city of New Thebes, the capital of Anhur.

"Once the generator facility is secured and the planetary cannons are ours, the Blue Suns can slip through the relay and make a dash for Anhur. They'll drop off their full complement of troops—minus a few that they'll send to keep both facilities secure—in a series of troop transports that will touch down here, in Alexandria, and secure this spaceport on the western edge of the city, then they'll stay in orbit over Osiris. Hopefully by then we'll have the cannons up and running and we can use them to hold back or even destroy the Ninth Fleet while we search for the saboteurs and prep to evacuate civilians."

"What's the significance of Alexandria?" Cade asked.

"It's the highest-populated city on Anhur, right above the capital, New Thebes, meaning we might find the most survivors there" I explained to him. "The spaceport is situated at the edge of the city, unlike the one in New Thebes that is basically dead-center, meaning it might be relatively free of hostiles, and its amenities, the surrounding terrain and building-cover make it more ideal for evacuations and as a forward operating base."

Percival scratched the back of his head and flipped back to the dossiers. "How many bodies do the Suns count with?"

"Three oversized companies, about three-hundred mercenaries each divided into ten thirty-man platoons," I told him.

Both Cade and Percival whistled. "Damn, they must have a hell of a command structure," Cade said with admiration.

"And that's not counting any local forces we might encounter in Alexandria," I added.

Elektra scrolled back to the map of Alexandria and studied it, making note of landmarks, points of interests, and the function of the buildings. "We have any idea where to even start looking for the saboteurs?"

I sighed and shook my head ruefully. That was the one thing I couldn't plan towards, not with our situation and the little intelligence we had. "No, I figure we could maybe nab a few inside the facilities and make one talk, or maybe one of the survivors might have seen something."

My friends all stood in silence for a moment and I waited patiently as they assimilated all that I'd told them. We'd take the facilities, we'd get the Suns onto the ground, and we'd conduct civilian recovery until we could pick up a lead. We couldn't rely on anyone else to hand us intel and we couldn't just sit and observe and simply wait for the saboteurs to make their next move. We'd have to go down there and get our hands dirty.

"There's a lot of things that can go wrong," Cade finally sighed, breaking the silence.

"I know, but we don't have the time nor the intel to plan and account for everything, not if we want to save as many people as we can. We're gonna have to wing it if shit hits the fan," I said.

"I think you've done a fine job," Percival said assuringly, "What we have now is solid, our plan allows for some contingency and flexibility, and like you said we don't have the time nor the intel to do anything more. This is the best we've got."

I nodded in thanks at my friends praise. Personally I still thought that there were still too many things that could go wrong and were currently unaccounted for, and as much as I would have liked to have had an STG team spend a week doing recon first before dropping in, I knew that the saboteurs wouldn't be waiting around doing nothing while we gathered intel. Not to mention the fact that the civilians couldn't afford to wait another week.

The DNA, the virus, the phenomenon—whatever you wanted to call it, had swept through the Hippocrates in a matter of hours, turning nearly everyone into those synthetic-organic killing machines. The saboteurs had already held the planet for nearly a week, we just couldn't afford to wait any longer, not if we wanted to save anyone.

"Alright then," Cade sighed happily. He clapped a taloned hand on both Percival's shoulder and mine, then pulled us close. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to kick some ass."

"And stop the saboteurs from carrying out galactic genocide, and stop this DNA from turning all of us into mindless metal zombies, right?" Percival asked him with a cocked eyebrow.

"That too," Cade nodded. "Can't forget the billions of lives at risk."

Elektra waved away the map and pulled up one last picture, that of the Chimera from back on the Hippocrates. For a moment we all stood and stared at it, taking in the sight of its serrated metal tail, its massive headplate, limbs and torso made from its victims, and its tiny, human-like mouth and hands. It had survived grenades, bullets, and even shots from a Cain, and we had only defeated it last time due to the sacrifice of two brave turians.

"These things…" Elektra shuddered. "Hearing you guys talk about them was one thing… But fighting them? I don't know if I'm ready."

"Only fully-grown Chimeras are indestructible, the smaller ones die like anything else," Percival replied.

"And you won't be fighting them alone," Cade told her in a rare moment of solidarity with the infuriating female Spectre.

Elektra nodded at the three of us with the briefest of genuine smiles, her true self slipping ever so slightly past her façade of confidence that she always liked to tout around. To see her scared nowadays was a rare occurrence – a privilege reserved for the rare few who she felt comfortable enough to let her guard down around. It stood in stark contrast to the days of our youth, when she'd jump at the slightest of noises at night.

I decided to close with a badass one-liner, just to really let it hit home that we were the good guys and that we were about to do something incredibly brave, heroic, and awesome, and also to give my friends some level of reassurance.

"All right, everyone. Let's mosey."

* * *

 _March 13_ _th_ _, 2211 – Aboard the BSV (Blue Suns Vessel) The Ghosts of Khar'shan — Hangar Bay_

 _Minos Wasteland, Arrae System — In orbit around Gellix_

I was first off the ramp of the Hammerhead dropship, clad in full armor and flanked on my left by Percival. Behind me trailed two teams of Jaegers under the command of Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton and Second Lieutenant Kelly Chang. Newly-promoted Lance Corporal Galen Verus, on loan from the Turian Hierarchy, stood to my right, the M-96 Mattock he'd found aboard the Hippocrates slung on the back of his smoky-grey armor.

Elektra and Cade exited the other shuttle, followed by Captain Murgen's team, a team under the command of First Lieutenant Holt, and the krogan Urdnot Garm and the asari commando Rayla T'lana. Percival had suggested that we force the two of them to share a shuttle on the way to the Blue Suns cruiser, the Ghosts of Khar'shan in an attempt to get them slowly re-acclimated to being in close proximity with each other. I'd thought it was futile, at least in my opinion.

I could hear my friend's gloves tightening and loosening again and again as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists. When I turned ever so slightly to look at him out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that his stare was glassy and fixed.

"Hey, you okay man?" I asked him.

Percival shook his head and stopped clenching his fists. "Yeah, I'm good. Just old ghosts and what-not."

I nodded in understanding. "Just focus on the people of Anhur."

"Oh I know."

Up ahead in the middle of the hangar bay were all the platoon leaders of the Blue Suns battalion. Most of them were un-surprisingly turian, by virtue of the alien species' natural mastery of war, but there were about an equal number of batarian and human officers as well, and surprisingly an asari in the mix.

They were a raucous bunch. The officers of the suns lounged around casually on crates or chairs, trading jokes and poking fun at each other. I saw one of the batarians finish the punchline of a joke to a chorus of loud laughs from several human officers while two turians were eating MRE's from a bag while seated on the wing of one of their transports.

"Equal numbers," noted Galen quietly from beside me. I hadn't gotten a chance to catch up with him much yet, but I presumed that he was still prodigiously kicking ass and hero-worshipping Cade. He had noticed what I had noticed too however – both our groups had roughly around forty individuals in it. Not that I was expecting a fight between us or our new allies of course.

Three of the officers present were not laughing or enjoying themselves however. Two batarians and a turian stood at the forefront of the rowdy group, their arms crossed and their faces grim masks of stoicism. All eight of their eyes were trained on our approaching party, and I couldn't help but notice that their weapons were activated and powered-on on their backs.

The tallest one was a batarian with an uncommon gold skin-tone. He was of equal height with Percival and every bit as bulky in his modified Blue Suns armor. A line of jagged metal spikes had been embedded in his pauldrons, giving him the look of a Corpser, and a series of black batarian script had been tattooed into his chestplate. Most noticeable was the burn scar covering the left half of his face – he was blind in two eyes.

"That's him," growled Percival.

"I know," I told him.

Captain Revak Ghar'aran, one of the two Butchers of Balak. During the final battle of the Slaver Fringe Wars, Alliance forces had both taken the orbital satellites and swarmed the slave facilities on the ground. Forces under the command of then First Lieutenant Percival had found thousands of lobotomized slaves in one of the facilities, all of them listless and broken, little more than husks.

The emergency combat doctors that the company had brought with them unanimously determined that the slaves had zero chance of rehabilitation. Curing the physical damage that the slavers had done to their brains was outside the possibilities that the realm of modern medicine allowed. When presented with the opportunity and prospect of escape, the slaves had merely sat there in silence, staring at their would-be Alliance rescuers without a word.

Desperate and on the verge of utter defeat, a large portion of the slavers launched one final counter-attack. They regrouped en-masse under the command of one of the Ghar'aran brothers and surrounded an Alliance company which had been tasked with covering the slave facility that Percival had taken. Caught out in the field and ambushed from all directions, the slavers had inflicted heavy casualties and threatened them with annihilation.

Percivals' company had been the closest to the trapped company. All Alliance forces other than Percival's company were otherwise engaged in evacuating the slaves or occupied by the remaining slaver forces. Percival had been given a hard, hard choice — save the Alliance company, or evacuate the lobotomized slaves.

He'd picked the Alliance forces. Percival took his company back out into the field and broke the ambush on the trapped Alliance company, saving hundreds of lives. Although the Ghar'aran in charge escaped, the slavers were defeated and the Alliance soldiers were saved.

But that slavers weren't done. They had known that defeat was inevitable, that the Systems Alliance war machine could not be stopped and that their last stronghold would be destroyed. While Percival had taken his forces to rescue his fellow soldier, a force of slavers under the command of the second Ghar'aran brother doubled-back on the now undefended facility and killed every last one of the slaves inside. When Percival returned to the facility, it was filled with a different kind of silence.

Overall, the operation was nonetheless a success. The last slaver stronghold had fallen and their backs were broken. Despite the terrible loss of the slaves, Percival was found not guilty of any crimes nor misconduct. The captain in charge of the trapped company had given positive testimony on behalf of Percival's decision, backed by the testimonies of the emergency combat doctors, and everyone on the Security Defense Counsel committee agreed that Percival had made the right call. Percival was then bumped to Lieutenant-Commander and given the Star of Terra

No one ever knew which brother had been responsible for which facility. Although both of them were wanted all throughout Council space, out here in the Terminus Systems the warlords who called it home didn't give a krogan's two left nuts what the Council wanted. It had been the defining moment of Percival's career, both his greatest triumph and his greatest defeat.

I would argue that it had been that moment that had forged him into the Spectre that he'd be one day, not his N7 training nor the dozens of commendations he'd receive afterwards, for it was during the Battle of Bahak that Percival learned the most important lesson there was to being a Spectre.

You couldn't save everyone.

Percival and I pulled ahead of the rest of the Jaegers while Cade and Elektra did the same so that we were all walking together. Ahead of us the three commanders of the Blue Suns did likewise. Malan Ghar'aran was roughly the same height as me, although as robustly built as his older brother was. Like him he had a gold-yellow skintone, although unlike him he had all four eyes intact. His armor was decorated in similar black batarian script and instead of jagged, metal spikes he had one enlarged, mismatched left pauldron and slightly thicker vambraces.

Bastion Navarrian was an amber-eyed, gray-plated turian with the red clan markings of one of the city states on Invictus. He was tall—taller than both batarians— and lanky like many of his species tended to be. His armor was the standard Blue Suns suit and he had a Phaeston strapped to his back. Of the three he looked the least unfriendly, but with turians it was hard to tell, plus the two Ghar'aran brothers looked like they were willing to throw down right here and now.

Both groups stopped a few feet away from each other. The Blue Suns platoon leaders had stopped joking and chatting and instead moved up to form behind their company commanders. Behind me I could hear some of the Jaegers shifting uneasily around, especially the younger ones. Alliance Jaegers typically didn't mix well with mercenary forces, seeing as how they tended to be on opposite sides of the field more often or not.

Accer took a step forward from behind me. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he whispered. Rake and his team all nodded in agreement beside him, while Galen's mandibles had begun to splay ever so slightly. It was starting to look like I had made a gross miscalculation in deciding to bring all my star players to this meet-and-greet. It wasn't looking like we'd be doing any bonding any time soon.

Only Urdnot Garm and the commando seemed unaffected by all the tension currently in the air. In fact, both of them seemed almost bored. I guess when you've lived as long as they had, you stopped giving a shit if you were staring down a horde of angry mercenaries. Rayla had her arms crossed and was leaning back on one heel, looking unimpressed by what the Blue Suns had to offer. It was so very typical of an asari commando.

I decided to break ranks first. I took a step toward Revak and held out a gloved hand, careful to keep my eyes on his good ones and not his dead ones. "Spectre Operative Cloud," I said in a brief, clipped introduction.

Revak didn't take my hand, instead he crossed his massive arms together over his equally massive chest and stared down at me. Thankfully his head was perfectly straight, not tilted to the right, indicating that he did not yet hold me in contempt.

"We know who you are, _Drak'Takai,"_ he said in a deep, guttural voice.

I turned to Percival. " _Drak'Takai?"_ I asked quietly.

"Death dealer," he whispered in reply. "The batarian word for one who is an accomplished killer. Take it, it's a compliment, and it bodes well."

"I don't see how being renowned for killing could ever be good news," I muttered.

I turned back to Revak and kept my head tilted ever so slightly to the left, even if his actions on Bahak had disgusted me. We had to keep them on good terms, the fate of the colony of Anhur depended on it.

"You've received our plans, then," I said, brushing past the useless introductions and moving straight into business. "What are your thoughts?"

Revak's voice was more krogan than batarian. "Your battle-plan is sound," he grunted. "Anhur is familiar to us, the Alexandria Spaceport is an ideal location for a center of operations."

"Good," I nodded. I had intended for this cross-decking to be an opportunity for our two groups to get to know each other a bit before fighting alongside one another, but judging by body-language of the commanders and the mercenaries behind them they weren't interested in any ice-breakers. "Then your fleet will hold position in the Crescent Nebula mass relay until we give you the all-clear."

Revak uncrossed his arms and tilted his head upwards. In batarian culture it meant that they were about to show defiance or to stand firmly on a matter. "One thing, _Drak'Takai._ Only two of my platoons will hold the satellite facility, and half a platoon at the generators. The rest I will take with me to Alexandria."

I narrowed my eyes. I had wanted at least a full platoon at the generators and four at the satellites, because once we'd taken control of them they would in turn be prime targets for the saboteurs to take back.

Percival had been silent the entire encounter, but at Revak's demand he couldn't hold back any longer. He took several steps towards the commander of the Blue Suns, his fists clenched.

"We need to keep _both_ those facilities well-defended, if the saboteurs take either facility back, you could find your communications crippled at best – your fleet torn apart at worst," he told the massive batarian.

Revak finally acknowledged Percival for the first time since we'd boarded, almost as if he'd been waiting for Percival to make the first move. I knew that there was no way he didn't know who Percival was or looked like – every batarian who had been a slaver did, Percival's face and his receiving of the Star of Terra had been broadcast to damn near every corner of Council space.

The scarred batarian commander tilted his head to the right as he turned and starred at my friend with his two black, beady eyes. I swallowed and did my best not to call upon my biotics and blow his half-burnt face apart. Revak's younger brother Malan must have sensed my trepidation because he suddenly took a step forward, standing protectively beside his older brother with his arms held ready at his side.

Revak took a few steps towards my friend as well, until he was about a foot away from Percival. Both the batarian and the former N7 were of equal height and build, although the batarian's armor was much more crude and dangerous looking. To my friend's credit, Percival barely flinched, and like me he kept his eyes trained firmly on Revak's two good ones.

"The platoons will all be heavy weapon squads, they'll be more than sufficient to keep the facilities in our hands. Unless you don't trust my men…," he growled.

 _I don't,_ I thought.

I took a step forward to stand beside my friend. "A full platoon at the generators. If the saboteurs re-take the cannons and destroy your ships then you're stranded on this planet with those creatures," I said as my final offer.

Revak took a moment to consider my proposal. Everyone in the hangar waited with baited breath for his final decision. If he didn't like it he could possibly pull out of the alliance and leave us without support, or worse, pull out a weapon and threaten us, which would cause the Jaegers to pump him full of holes and his subordinates to retaliate, rendering the hangar a bloodbath.

After a few seconds, he looked to both his brother and Navarrian, both of whom nodded at him.

"Done," he barked.

I nodded, relieved. If we wanted to save any civilians we had to make sure his ships stayed intact, and that meant keeping the planetary defense cannons firmly under our control.

Instead of turning around and walking away, Revak instead took one final step towards Percival, bringing the two nose-to-nose. The batarian's black eyes bore into my friend's blue ones,

"You can't defend everything, _Drak'Takai. You_ should know," he whispered so that only Percival and I could hear.

Percival clenched his jaw tight, the sheer amount of effort it took for him to stay silent was visible in the tightness of his masseter muscles and in his cheeks.

Revak finally let up and backed off of Percival. He turned around and moved towards his platoon leaders, grunting to them in a human-batarian mixed dialect that my e-translators were having trouble scrubbing. It was one of the many mercenary tongues commonly used by mercenaries and outlaws in the Terminus Systems, useful in that it wouldn't be readily translated by someone with a universal translator.

Malan gave his brother a concerned look and turned to follow him, giving us one last glare. Bastion actually took a moment to give Cade a turian salute, acknowledging his role in the Rebellions, before also turning around and following the two batarian brothers. I could also see that several of the Blue Suns platoon leaders pointing at Elektra, Rayla and a few of the female Jaegers and snickering or smiling suggestively. They were not exactly the allies I would have hoped for.

I internally sighed. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how the cross-decking went down, given the relationship Percival had with the two batarians and the nature of the relationship between Alliance special operations troops and what were essentially glorified pirates. I'd been hoping to start our little joint-venture off on better terms – maybe not with us holding hands and singing kumbaya or some shit, but at least with some measure of mutual respect – but it looks like our two groups weren't very interested in mingling t the moment.

"That went well," Cade said.

"Did you see the way that merc was looking at me? I swear I was going to shoot him in both eyes," Elektra quietly complained.

My friend cocked his head towards her, a small smile on his face "Well there's an easy fix. Ditch the eyeliner, the makeup, and stop walking around like you're an off-shift Afterlife dancer."

Elektra rounded on the turian, "Listen here you little—,"

I glared at both of them, then waved my finger in a tiny circle above my head and jerked my head back towards the shuttles. Accer and his team complied happily, as did most of the Jaegers, but I did note that Captain Murgen had a bit of a frown on his face. Like me he probably wasn't happy about the tension between our forces. It'd be something I'd need to talk to him about before we made landfall.

Percival and I fell towards the rear of the group, looking one last time over at the group of Blue Suns. They had returned to their raucous, loud selves, though I couldn't help but notice that the Ghar'aran brothers had both joined in on the jokes and the back-slapping.

My friend was unnaturally quiet and still as we walked back. See, that's how it usually was with bad memories. Sometimes you'd go for days, weeks, months, or even years without thinking about them, but when you did, they were all you thought about. All the feelings and emotions associated with those memories would come welling up in full force as if the moment had happened yesterday, and if you weren't ready for them they could be debilitating as fuck.

"What a bunch of characters," I sighed, looking away from the Suns. One of the platoon leaders just punched another one in the face, and instead of breaking up the fight a chorus of cheers had broken out among the rest.

"Human marines do much of the same things when they're bored," Percival pointed out.

"Yeah," I acknowledged, "But at least I can trust marines in a fight. We've fought against Blue Suns before on our missions. Sure, once you've paid them they say their loyalty is absolute, but you know as well as I do that once their employer's dead or you've killed enough of them they tend to turn tail and run."

"The same could be said of the soldiers of any race," my friend countered. "Fighting to the death ought to be an absolute last resort, sometimes retreating or surrendering is better if it means that you and your men will live to fight another day."

"I thought you'd hate the Suns, especially given their leaders," I said, perplexed. "It almost sounds like you admire them."

Percival stopped in his tracks and turned to look at me, prompting me to stop as well. He furrowed his brow, confused, and stared.

"You think I hate the Blue Suns? You think I hate the Ghar'aran brothers?" he asked.

I was confused also. "Well yeah, wouldn't you? After what they did on Balak? All those innocent people, all those Alliance soldiers? Isn't that why you're in the pits every time we bring them up?"

Percival looked down and shook his head. My friend sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hand.

"No, they're not the reason why I feel like this, and I don't hate them, as surprising as it might sound," he told me.

I crossed my arms over my chest, surprised of course. The brothers were wanted in Council Space for good reason, even before they'd committed those atrocities at Bahak. They had been part of a faction of hardcore slavers who'd been fixated on rebuilding the shattered Batarian Hegemony on the backs of Reaper War survivors and refugees, the faction that the Systems Alliance fought the Slaver Fringe Wars to stop. They had probably also committed numerous crimes in addition to slavery, you literally couldn't have asked for someone better to hate.

"Why?" I asked. The Jaegers had already boarded, and Cade's shuttle had already left, leaving just the two of us standing in this section of the hangar bay of the Ghosts of Kar'shan. I could see Flight Lieutenant Chan wave at me from behind the viewport of his shuttle. I waved back and held up two fingers, asking him to wait.

The former N7 chewed his lip as I waited patiently for him to formulate his words. I was genuinely curious about his reasons, because I knew that had I been in Percival's place, I would have hated the Ghar'arans with every last fiber of my being.

"Look Cloud, events, especially undesirable events, are at their core caused by two things – your actions, and the actions of others. Sure, if you wanted you could factor in circumstances, luck, and a thousand other variables, but the way I see it, in the end it still boils down to what you do and what others do," Percival began.

My friend let out a long, slow breath, the kind you let out before you try to talk someone into something completely farfetched and left-field. Secretly I welcomed any controversial discourse to be said, in my experience it would only give you a better appreciation and understanding of the complexities and intricacies that were a part of life.

"It's tempting to just label someone evil or good based on the actions that they do, but the truth is you can never tell what another person is thinking — what events, memories, and actions may have shaped their lives and how all those variables have affected their decision to do a certain thing.".

Percival looked back at the two Ghar'aran brothers still laughing and joking around with their men. Had I not known of the two's grisly deeds or had been greeted so icily by them just now, I perhaps would have simply judged them to be exceptionally raucous Blue Suns commanders. Your average batarian mercenary commanders with a penchant for dramatic additions to their armor and from the sounds of it a good sense of humor.

"And as such," he continued, "to hate someone merely for actions that we perceive to be bad or evil is, at least in my opinion, to hate something we don't understand, and I personally believe that we should never hate something just because we don't understand it.

Percival looked me in the eyes. Whereas mine were like glowing chips of ice his were like a summer's sky, but in them now I could also see pain, the kind of pain you get when you're lost in a bad memory.

"And that only leaves us with the other half of the equation. Our own actions. Those are always completely knowable to us. We alone know each and every single one of our memories, our thoughts, and our experiences, and we alone can understand the amalgamation of all those variables and how they might drive us to perform certain actions."

The Blue Suns had stopped laughing and joking around. They were now all arrayed in a circle around the three company commanders, likely engrossed in a discussion of strategy and tactics. They must not have been concerned that we'd overhear, because they made no effort to move out of the hangar. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the younger Ghar'aran brother glance our way a few times when he thought that we weren't looking.

"The climax of the Battle of Bahak, the loss of all those lives…," Percival continued, "that was an undesirable event, but to pin it all on the Ghar'aran brothers is not only unfair, but it diminishes the lessons that that such terrible events have the potential to teach us because it completely ignores half of the equation. Because someone else's actions brought about those events that day – mine."

I understood then what bothered Percival. Like he said, it was sometimes hard to know or understand what was going on in someone else's head, and as such it was all too easy for us to impose our own paradigm on another and use it to explain their actions or to fill in _their_ blanks ourselves. I thought Percival felt so strongly about the Ghar'arans because I thought Percival hated them, and I thought Percival hated them because I would have hated them.

"I chose the Alliance marines over the slaves. You may think that I blame myself or something, but I don't. The doctors backed my decision and I knew that if I were to split my forces I wouldn't have had the men to both save the company and defend the slaves. In my heart I believe I made the right choice, but it doesn't change the fact that thousands lost their lives because of something I did, no matter my reasoning."

We decided to move a bit closer to the shuttle, to reassure the Flight Lieutenant and our friends that we did intend to return to the Excalibur, and that we most definitely didn't want to be left behind with such distinguished company.

"So no, I don't hate the Ghar'aran brothers for what happened on Balak that day. Nor do I think that I hate myself," Percival continued to explain. He sighed and ran a hand through his blond hair and stopped just beside the ramp. I stopped as well and waited for him to finish,

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that … What you think I'm feeling now, it's caused by sadness more than it is caused by hate, sadness that the price of the lesson I learned—the lesson that sometimes you can't save everyone—was paid for by those who we should have returned to their families and granted some semblance of peace. Call it sorrow, sorrow over the fact that I am reminded of a decision I made that cost the lives of people that I swore to bring home," my friend concluded.

Percival moved past me and stepped onto the shuttle. I stood by myself for a while, mulling over his words. At his core, Percival was a better man than I was, and a much better Spectre. I would have killed the Ghar'arans for what they had done, I most definitely wouldn't have looked past it and only fixated on what I had done.

There is always something more that you can learn from the people around you. Numerous little lessons that you can use to make yourself into someone better. I knew that this mission against the saboteurs would test the very limits of my morals, but like Percival I would try my best not to paint all of them with one, evil brush. I wouldn't do that, no, I would try to be better.

* * *

 ** _Optional Author's note._**

 _When I first conceived of the idea for this story, I had a clear list of things that I wanted to do in it._

 _The first thing was that I wanted the whole first part to be long, drawn-out, and to take place on a single ship dead-space style and use it to heavily shape and introduce my long list of newbie, semi-ripped off characters. Honestly, I feel like the story could have or should have ended with the first season._

 _The second thing was that I wasn't going to center it on the existing characters in the Mass Effect Universe (sorry) nor frame it as a re-telling or an insert of my own character into the Reaper War or as a re-telling of the Reaper War from a point of view of an existing character (Not sorry). Shepard… Garrus… Tali… to me their story ended in Mass Effect 3, and I wasn't going to resurrect them and risk sullying them. Say what you want about the ending of Mass Effect 3, but I thought that the interpersonal relationships were perfect. I wanted Shepard's story to end where it did._

 _No, I wanted to create my own characters, even if they sucked ass and are in some (most) ways pale imitations of the original cast, and they wouldn't be inserts in the Reaper War, but characters in a universe shaped by it. Andromeda didn't really paint a good picture of life in the Milky Way after the Reaper War, so I decided to try my hand at it, for better or for worse._

 _So I conceived of a fresh crop of characters in the Milky Way set twenty-five years after the conclusion of the Reaper War, and in homage to the backstory that you get to select for Shepard, I gave all three of my main characters backstories as well, not only to help flesh them out but to help form the Post-Reaper universe that I envisioned._

 _One aspect of said universe was that things weren't all peachy after the war. Earth is currently inhospitable and still in ruins, infected by what the characters are discovering to be the same thing that turned the crew of the Hippocrates into what I consider to be metal-necromorphs. A secret faction of individuals discovered something made them decide to embark on a nefarious path towards galactic genocide masked as eternal salvation. And finally slavery ran rampant as a result of many species trying to desperately repair their broken homes._

 _The latter gave rise to events such as the formation of the Jaegers, the Palaven Rebellions that made Cade who he was, and the Battle of Bahak that made Percival who he was. I added both the Rebellions and the Battle as homage to how you could select the backstory of Shepard as either the Hero of Elysium or the Butcher of Torfan in the original games. It must have been infuriating at first for some readers, to have me reference such vague, unformed events in my earlier chapters to help build my characters up._

 _It might have seemed like an edge-lord, pointless move at the time, but I actually came up with the full stories for both the Rebellion and the Battle before I wrote this one. It was always my intention to eventually release the backstory of all three of my main characters in separate short stories alongside Transcendence._

 _To be honest, I think I enjoy universe-building more than I enjoy writing the main plot of this story. It's why I never ask for reviews or why I don't have a beta-reader, although if someone does leave a review or a private message I always try to message them back. Honestly, sometimes I think I'm writing this more for myself than I am for other people. I'm trying to work through the loss I felt when I heard they were shelving Andromeda and realized that I'd never actually get to witness a true galactic happily-ever-after. After I heard that little piece of news, I really really really really really wanted to write about the galaxy I envisioned after the Reaper War. Writing this for me is actually hella cathartic._

 _To those who actually enjoy the story, maybe you enjoy it for the same reasons that I keep writing it. You want to experience a world that takes place after the Reaper War. That or y'all are crazy. Either way, don't feel obligated to leave reviews or to favourite it, my ego is more than satisfied by other areas of my life. Making an account is a pain and I see the views and visitors this story gets anyways. Just enjoy the ride, friends._


	29. Chapter 29 - Battle of Bahak - Part 1

**Chapter 1 – Feet First into Bahak**

* * *

 _(Ten Years Ago)_

 _February 22_ _nd_ _, 2201, 0932 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

The shuttle vibrated like it was possessed by a demonic spirit. The Captain had mentioned that the winds on Bahak could hit up to ninety kilometers an hour, but at the time he had said it Percival had filed the information into the back of his brain as "non-essential". Systems Alliance Hammerhead Dropships could be fielded in winds of up to one-hundred and fifty kilometers an hour — ninety should have been nothing.

That is if you considered being shaken about like a rat by a terrier for three whole minutes before getting shot at by batarian slavers 'nothing'.

Percival closed his eyes and willed the surging sense of unease and fear away, or at the very least, as deep-down as he could. His finger tapped incessantly against the trigger-guard of his M-7 Lancer. Nothing could make that sense of unease and fear disappear, Percival knew, not unless he was kipped up on uppers or some sort of psychopath. He also knew that it was up to him to take that fear and turn it into something constructive – to use it to help him survive and to get his men out in one piece.

" _Sixty seconds!"_ The pilot shouted over the intercom. Percival swallowed and grabbed the hand that was tapping on his rifle with his other one, squeezing it as hard as he could. It wouldn't do for the rest of the platoon to see exactly how nervous he was, not when they were counting on him to be lead them.

Beside him he heard one of his marines noisily vomit onto the deck of the Hammerhead.

"Jake, make sure Santiago is fucking awake! And Scully, you better not choke to death before the batarians even get a crack at you!" screamed the platoon's head NCO, Gunnery Chief James Fairchild.

"S-sir, yes sir!" the private whimpered.

Percival squeezed his eyes shut and hoped that all the unease and the fear would go away once he had his boots on solid ground, where he could lay-up, take cover, and actually return fire at slavers now currently picking off the shuttles one by one.

A loud explosion from the outside jolted his eyes wide open. Percival double-checked his harness in case something had hit their shuttle and looked around to try and spot any structural damage.

" _Christ, that was Foxtrot 2-2, Foxtrot 2-2 is down!"_ One of the pilots shouted.

"Hey, slaps, you okay?" asked Gunnery Chief Fairchild, or 'Fairy' as they sometimes called him. AA fire and downed shuttles apparently didn't so much as even phase the man but the sight of his superior officer looking scared shitless somehow did. Percival wished that he had a fraction of the courage that James had, maybe then he'd have a shot at bringing all of his marines home in one piece.

"I'm good man, thanks," Percival replied. It was a white-knuckled lie, but thankfully for him he was wearing full-fingered gloves.

" _Thirty seconds,"_ came the penultimate report.

Percival and the rest of the marines began undoing their harnesses and checking over their weapons and armor one last time. As one they all stood and formed up in two lines of eight, facing the rear of the dropship where they'd be departing. As was custom, Percival took his place at the front of one line while James took the other. There were a whole lot of whispered prayers and half-promises flying among the marines as the shuttle began to slow down.

He felt a hand grab him tightly by the shoulder and Percival turned to see his friend staring at him with a look of steely resolve.

"Hey, Percival, look at me. You'll do fine man, you're a good officer. You've trained for this".

Percival _had_ trained for this. They'd told him what it'd be like back in Officer Candidate School, but in the two years since he'd graduated he'd yet to fully shake off the fear that preceded every single combat drop. Even when he'd be given commendation after commendation, completed successful mission after successful mission, Percival had never fully stopped being afraid. He knew that the day he did, either he had finally snapped or he had nothing left to live for. Either way he'd be dead.

Percival nodded at his friend. The shuttle's doors dropped open to reveal a hellish, dune-like landscape dotted with charred, glassy patches of sand, gunfire, and tiny figures either in Systems Alliance armor or the bladed armor of the slavers exchanging weapons-fire with one another from behind impromptu foxholes or large rocks.

What's worse, even though they were still about twenty meters in the air and travelling at roughly fifty kilometers an hour towards their designated landing zone, Percival could still hear the cacophony of pained screams and frantic, angry orders that echoed from human and batarian throats alike. It wasn't like anything he'd ever experienced before, and although Percival had never been particularly religious he now felt compelled to call upon every deity he knew to grant him the courage to step off of this shuttle and into the howling inferno of battle.

A metal spike suddenly lodged itself into the compartment above his head, missing his helmet by mere inches. Percival cursed and tightened his grip on his M-7 Lancer.

" _Five seconds!"_ screamed his pilot, then " _Go! Go! Go!"._

Percival leapt out of the shuttle, rifle up and his head down, tracking for any slavers tempted to loose off a few shots at his marines currently departing from their shuttles. A few meters away and a couple of feet behind him James fired his Lancer at a few figures with large, black blades jutting out from their shoulder-guards. It was hard to see where all the slavers were positioned; all the shuttles were kicking up tons and tons of sand to the point where Percival could barely see forty meters in any direction.

All around him shuttles were dropping off more and more marines from his company. He watched as a tight group of about three marines from another platoon off to his right were suddenly hit by a group Overload, burning right through their shields and leaving them twitching in place.

He watched in horror as a stick-like device landed among their midst. Before he could do anything it went off, sending dozens of foot-long barbs lancing through the incapacitated marines, punching right through their armor and tearing them to bloody ribbons.

Percival found his voice then. "Spread out! Spread out! One marine is a waste of ammo, five is a juicy target!" he bellowed into his radio.

No one could accuse fate of not having an ironic sense of humor. A marine somewhere to his right quietly wilted and folded under a hail of spikes, blood spewing in great spurts from his shattered chestplate. A medic ran towards the fallen marine only to take a burst of spikes to the femur. She went down with a scream, one hand clawing at them in pain and agony, the other scrabbling through the sand as she tried desperately to pull herself to the fallen marine.

Percival's comm unit crackled to life and he could hear his captain hailing him on the other end. " _Percival! Get your fucking men on the line and lay down suppressive fire!"_ shouted Captain Garen.

"Roger that, captain!" Percival replied. "Fairy, take your squad up our left! Dimi, Ruiz, right flank! We need to get to the line!" he screamed into his comm. set.

" _Roger that slaps!"_

" _Affirmative, Lieutenant!"_

" _You've got it!"_

Percival had fought on sandy planets before and he absolutely hated every one. In addition to the slavers firing their spike-throwers at him, each step took nearly four times more effort than it would have usually taken than if he had been on stable ground. Percival wasn't exactly a light marine – each heavy step brought the sand nearly up to his ankles, and the heavy armor he was wearing wasn't exactly doing him any favors either.

But fear was a hell of a stimulant, giving him the energy he needed to sprint on. A trio of spikes whistled past his head. Percival caught sight of a pair of figures in bladed armor suddenly emerge from beneath the sands. Without stopping, he let loose an extended burst, giving a wordless prayer of thanks when he saw that his rounds had landed right on target and a spray of reddish blood erupt from their chests. Both of the slavers flopped back down, where the sand would soon cover them back up.

Another pair of slavers rose up from a spider-hole somewhere to his left, but before Percival could swing his rifle to neutralize them a hail of gunfire shredded them before they'd even had a chance to take a shot at the marine lieutenant.

" _Got your back, Perc,"_ James replied over the comm.

"Thanks," Percival grunted.

He could see the spike-ridden bodies of scores of marines on the dunes ahead of them, bleeding. It was brutal, the way that they'd been killed. Kinetic barriers were designed to stop the fast-moving, sand-sized grains of titanium that modern-day mass effect weaponry fired, not the large-caliber spikes that the slavers used. Marine combat armor was tough, but the sheer mass of the metal spikes that the slavers fired allowed it to punch right through, inflicting terrible damage on organs and flesh.

Behind Percival his marines wordlessly traded fire with any targets they could see in the sandstorm, saving their breath for running in the mire-like sand. None of the marines in his squad had been hit yet, but he could see more than a few marines missing from the other platoons in his company currently running further out on his flanks. It was turning into an absolute bloodbath.

Cries for medic erupted around him as marines caught spikes to the legs, arms, torso, and head. Those that caught them in the head or in a vital artery died either instantly or in seconds, with no amount of medigel being capable of stemming such terrible wounds. Those who caught one in the non-vital areas still suffered intense tissue trauma from the large-bore spikes that the batarians fired.

" _Hurry the fuck up Lieutenant!"_ His captain cried again.

"Running as fast as I can sir!" Percival panted laboriously.

" _Run faster!"_

The line was now about thirty meters away. Percival could see the rest of his company arranged on a rough line of dunes and in hastily-dug foxholes firing at pods of slavers on the other side of the no-man's land. The other companies of his battalion were covering other points further down the line, trying their best to secure a landing zone so that the heavy artillery could finally arrive and start kicking down some doors.

Percival finally made it to the position his platoon was supposed to take up in the line. He slid into a foxtrot, placed the barrel of his Lancer up on the lip, and started firing at anything that wasn't in the armor of a Systems Alliance Marine.

Corporal Kara Johansson slid into position beside him, sporting a couple of gashes in her pauldron where a slaver had likely gotten off a lucky hit, but otherwise unharmed and extremely, extremely angry. She screamed in anger and unloaded her rifle at a trio of slavers currently laying down fire on a squad from another company somewhere to their left. They all pitched face-down into the sand, bleeding from dozens of wounds.

She turned to Percival and depolarized her helmet, revealing her shaved head and her sharp cheeks pulled back into a savage grin.

"Not the way they wanted to start their morning, huh LT?" Kara joked.

Percival smiled in return and nodded at the corporal. "Not the way they wanted to end it, either. Anyone hit?" he asked her.

"No, everyone in the squad made it. The captain still kicking?"

"Yeah," Percival replied. "Can't see him with all this damn sand though."

"I hate sand," Kara said between bursts from her Lancer. "It's coarse and it gets everywhere."

Percival ducked down into the foxhole and keyed open his comm. channel. Private 1st Class Jasmine Mendoza, or 'Jazz' as she preferred to be called, and Corporal Duc 'Ducky' Nguyen slammed down into the foxhole to his right and opened up with their weapons alongside Kara.

"I am already fucking done with this shit," Ducky sighed as he ducked to avoid an Incineration bolt tossed by one of the slavers.

"You know you love it, you dog," Jazz scoffed.

The rest of his squad went prone on the dune behind his foxhole and added to the covering fire. Percival had no clue as to whether or not the planetary cannons were close to coming offline, all he knew was that his entire battalion had to establish a landing zone for the heavy artillery before they did.

"Fairy, you still alive man?" Percival asked.

" _It's been like five minutes, who do you take me for,"_ his best friend chuckled.

"Casualties?" Percival inquired to the other NCO's in his platoon over his comm unit. "Ruiz, Dimi, any losses?"

" _No, we're green,"_ James replied.

" _We lost Eugene and Carssen,"_ reported Gunnery Chief Adriano Dimitrios. The greek Systems Alliance marine was a ten-year veteran who'd been a part of the Slaver Fringe Wars since it began, and he'd spent the better part of their journey to the Gunthel System claiming that he was more than ready to see it end.

" _Ivanovich took a spike through the leg,"_ reported Service Chief Francisco Ruiz.

Percival cursed. Like James had said, they'd barely been on this planet for five minutes and already their platoon had taken ten percent casualties, and after they had established the landing zones they'd still need to seize and take the slave facilities, fighting the slavers in close-quarters combat on their own turf. He'd be writing a lot of letters when he made it out of this. If he made it out of this.

He swapped channels to the company-wide channel. "Captain, third platoon is in position. Three casualties – two of which are fatalities."

" _Shit, okay,"_ replied Captain Michael Garen. " _Keep up suppressive fire, we're waiting for a few stragglers from Miller's platoon. Zulu company landed about two minutes ago – they've got the heavy weapons. Once they're here we'll begin to push back."_

A spike grenade went off somewhere nearby and a chorus of screams rose up. _"_ Any updates on the planetary cannons?" Percival asked, doing his best to ignore the cries of dying marines.

" _Not yet, but the 63_ _rd_ _should already be on-board the cannons! They'll have 'em down in no time and we'll paste these slavers faster than you can spit, Lieutenant!"_

"Oohrah, captain!" Percival grinned. He clicked off his comm. set and stood up and re-took his position on the line, firing at a slaver who was taking aim at a combat medic currently treating a wounded marine.

" _What's the word?"_ James asked.

"Zulu company is on the way with the heavies, and the 63rd is engaged. We just need to hold out for now," Percival told him.

" _Well let's hope your girlfriend gets here in time then,"_ snarked his second-in-command. Percival rolled his eyes and ignored the jab his friend made. He knew it wasn't personal, after all it had been James who'd introduced the two back on Terra Nova. He had told Percival that officers should stick with the officers and leave the enlisted for the NCO's.

"Hey Fairy, you gonna find me a nice, well-endowed female jarhead as well?" Corporal Johansson asked.

" _And get sent to Dante's ninth circle? Fuck that corporal."_ James chuckled.

The marines in the platoon all erupted in laughter at the Gunnery Chief's reply. All of them were familiar with Corporal Johannson's appetite. She was currently at the top of the unofficial company leaderboards, and if rumor had it – the entire battalion, although Whitley from Victor Company could give her a run for her money.

One of the marines in the foxhole some meters away to Percival's left suddenly went down with a spike through his eye, putting a sudden end to the storm of laughter in his platoon.

" _Medic!"_ screamed Service Chief Ruiz. Percival could see a marine with a red navy corpsman's cross on her pauldron dash over from an adjacent foxhole and kneel to check on the hit marine. It was pointless, Percival knew, but he respected and allowed the corpsman's attempt nonetheless. It was what made marines marines – that stubborn inability to leave any of their brothers and sisters behind.

That made four casualties now, and if they had to wait any longer soon there wouldn't be a company left to take the slave facilities.

Percival fired a carnage blast at a group of slavers currently leap-frogging from enemy foxhole-to-foxhole, killing two of them outright and knocking out the shields of the other two. Before the two surviving slavers could reach safety, Jazz and Ducky both brought them down with concentrated bursts of fire that shredded through the slavers' rather flimsy armor. Although their armor looked impressive and intimidating – what with the implanted spikes and blades on their pauldrons and the black batarian script that ran up and down their arms and chest – It only took about two seconds of sustained fire to punch through their kinetic barriers and another half-second to kill them. It was cheap, mass-produced stuff.

But what the slavers lacked in armor, they made up for in arms. Modeled off of Graal Spike-throwers krogan used to hunt thresher maws on their native planet of Tuchanka, the slaver's Spike-rifle was their answer to Systems Alliance hardsuits, kinetic barriers, and combat armor.

Essentially rifle-sized nail guns that fired six-inch long flechettes. Their spike-rifles ignored any defensive advantages that the Systems Alliance marines might have had and put the two opposing forces on essentially even ground.

A massive, six-foot long metal javelin suddenly flew right at Corporal Nguyen. Ducky ducked just in time and the javelin embedded itself on the dune behind their foxhole, just barely missing Private 1st Class Malcolm Sterling.

"I am _so_ done with this shit!" Ducky cursed.

"God, fucking damn it!" cried Sterling. The heavy gunner stood up, ignoring the hailstorm of spikes that were flying around him, and unloaded his M-76 Revenant at a group of slavers manning some sort of weapon they currently had braced against the ground – like a Kishock harpoon gun, but oversized. The slavers disappeared in a shower of blood and gore under the withering gunfire.

His M-76 Revenant overheated just as the last slaver went down, and as it cooled another group of slavers rose up from a nearby spider-hole, their spike-rifles aimed at the angry heavy gunner.

A hand grabbed the private around the ankle of his hardsuit and jerked him down back behind the dune just before a line of spikes ripped through the space where his head had been mere moments before.

"What the shit, Sterls? Are you fucking trying to get yourself killed?" hissed Private 1st Class Laverne Kane. The private fired at the slavers who had tried to impale his friend, forcing them to duck back down into their spider-hole.

"I am _trying_ to win this goddamn fight. You can't get killed if there's no one left to kill you," Sterling shot back.

"That is _not_ how this works!" Kane hissed even more furiously.

Another six-foot long metal javelin flew into a nearby foxhole and punched through the armored chest of a marine and the marine who'd been reloading behind him, pinning the two of them together. Percival's eyes went wide in shock

" _What the fuck was that!"_ screamed James.

"Modified Kishocks!" Percival screamed back. "We need to take them out before the Goblins can land! Those things can punch through the plating on our heavy artillery!"

"Fairy, Kishock coming up your lane!" Kara yelled.

Either the batarians didn't care about saving their modified harpoon guns for the heavy artillery or they had enough of them to spare. Many of the javelins missed but Percival saw more than a few marines get brutally impaled by the savage weaponry. The six-foot long metal spikes could punch right through sand to hit a marine in a foxhole or behind a dune, they had to take them out soon.

" _X-ray Company, focus fire on those heavy weapons!"_ ordered the Captain.

Percival and the rest of his marines obeyed, prioritizing batarians who were manning the modified Kishocks.

" _Perc, you've got an enemy squad moving towards a Kishock at your eleven!"_ shouted Ruiz over the comm set.

Percival turned to the direction in question. He squinted through the sandstorm and saw that a group of batarians were stealthily making their way towards a Kishock that had been dropped by another group of slain slavers. He tapped on Kara's shoulder and gestured towards the group.

The corporal nodded and slid a carnage shell into her Lancer. Percival did the same, then held up three fingers and started lowering them one by one.

At the end of the countdown, both Percival and Kara lifted their Lancers and fired their carnage shells directly at the group of slavers. The batarians had just reached the weapon and were in the process of loading it when the shells went off, blowing them into chunks of steaming metal and flesh and the weapon to a mangled ruin. The sand then began the laborious work of covering up the gruesome slight.

"Good shot LT," Ducky acknowledged.

"You too Kara," Jazz whistled.

Suddenly a hail of heavy gunfire erupted from behind the marines, not directed towards them but towards the slaver line. All the foxholes at the front of the slavers ranks erupted in plumes of sand and blood as the heavy gunners of Zulu company fired their M-110 Crocodile Heavy Machine Guns at slaver lines. The weapons were heavy and had to be carried by two marines but were capable of firing in excess of 900 rounds per minute, for five straight minutes.

Their radio's crackled on again, and the voice of their captain could once more be heard over the company-wide channel.

" _Zulu is here! Push those fuckers back and secure this LZ before those birds get here with the heavy guns!"_

Percival took several deep breaths and tightened his gloves around the barrel of his M7 Lancer. Beside him Kara quickly crossed herself and said a few quick words beneath her breath. They would be getting the order to charge any minute now, once Zulu Company had successfully suppressed the slavers. Marines would die, and he'd lose friends, but that was what they had signed up for, right?"

" _Down in that valley rots thousands of poor souls—souls that the slavers have torn from their families, homes, and loved ones—all in the name of rebuilding their 'glorious' empire,"_ the captain continued. " _I don't know about you, but that shit absolutely will not fly with me! I'm not going to sit around and let living, breathing beings of any species live under the tyranny of another, and I'm damn well sure neither will you!"_

" _Oohrah!"_ echoed from the throats of the hundreds of marines of the five companies of the 5th Battalion of the 104th Marines. They were the last battalion of the last marine regiment in the Systems Alliance. With a roar, the marines of Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee and Zulu company all prepared to meet the slavers — not their gods, no. Today, they were the gods.

Percival roared alongside his marines. He didn't sign up to kill people. He didn't sign up to become some paper-pushing general or some fobbit on a backwater colony stamping procurement papers and checking inventory. No, he signed up because he had never been one to shy away from a fight that needed fighting – not when he had been a child on the playgrounds of Elysium, standing between his friends and a group of bullies who'd wanted to take their soccer ball, or when he'd heard that his father had been killed out on patrol by a group of pirates. No sir.

" _Marines, last of the last! Freedom is not. fucking. optional!"_ roared the captain.

The Crocodiles ceased their relentless barrage and a blanket of silence fell over the slaver's front lines. Percival watched as a lone, armored figure sprinted up from a foxhole some distance away and began to sprint across the no-mans land, through the sandstorm that whipped across the battlefield and towards the enemy ranks.

He turned to his marines. All of them – Kara, Jazz, Ducky, Kane, Sterls, Woodhouse and Cormack – all of them had their faceplates depolarized and all of them had looks of sheer determination etched onto their faces.

The sands swirled and danced and began to cover up those who had already fallen, slaver and marine alike. In time their bodies would be covered and the blood would be hidden, and any future generations that walked upon Bahak, upon this spot, would be hard-pressed to tell that on these sands brave men and women died so that others could be free.

Percival nodded to all of them. "You heard the captain! Freedom is not fucking optional!"

He grabbed the lip of the foxhole and heaved himself over it, his throat hoarse from all the yelling, his Lancer held in his other hand. Beside him Kara did the same, laughing lyrically.

Ducky and Jazz came up next, with Ducky muttering for the third time that he was completely over this shit. Both of them fell into step behind Percival, the rest of the squad trailing behind them. All of the marines roared and began firing at the slaver's lines, further suppressing the batarians and buying the rest of the battalion time to make it through the killing field.

No, freedom wasn't, not while a single marine of the last of the last still had breath left in their body.

* * *

 _February 22_ _nd_ _, 2201, 0925 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption…Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Lieutenant Commander Thomas Locke – N7 Team One)_

Locke set the last charge in place, then ensured that the activation triggers were properly synced up to his omni-tool. A mistimed charge would at best ruin their grand entrance or at worst, go off before his team could fully clear the airlock, killing them or spacing them and leaving the planetary defense cannon up and running to tear through the Goblin transports responsible for bringing the heavy artillery down onto Bahak.

 _You're not dying here today Tom, you've still got things to do,_ Locke thought to himself.

" _Did you double-check the charges? I'd prefer if it were just the batarians who died today,"_ quipped Staff Lieutenant Alexander Avery. The second N7 in Locke's team was currently magnetically attached to one side of the airlock that the team would breach from, his fingers drumming impatiently on the barrel of his modified M-76 Revenant.

" _Looks like we've got different preferences,"_ retorted Staff Lieutenant Linda Churchill. The sniper and tech expert had never really gotten use to her fellow N7's gallows humor, even after nearly five years of serving on the same team. She had traded in her customary Black Widow sniper rifle for a modified M-15 Vindicator, a prudent exchange given the lack of open spaces in the planetary defense cannon.

" _Charges are triple-checked. Check your weapons and your mag-settings, and make sure you keep your helmets sealed. We can't guarantee that the cannons have a breathable atmosphere or artificial gravity,"_ Locke reminded his team. Although the three of them had maybe a combined total of nearly forty years of combat experience, it still never hurt to be more than careful.

" _I hate space ops,"_ groaned Alex.

Locke and his team were currently mag-attached to the perimeter of an airlock on one of Bahak's planetary defense cannons. Two platoons from the 63rd had boarded this particular cannon facility about ten minutes ago and had encountered stiff resistance, and as a result Locke's team was sent in to expedite the process.

The slavers had spared no expenses in protecting the planet of Bahak, their last stronghold. Nearly a dozen planetary defense cannons – each of them essentially mini space stations built around a mass accelerator cannon – were currently keeping the Ninth Fleet's heavy transports from dropping off the heavy artillery that the boys on the ground needed to punch through the shield covering the valley in which the slave facilities were currently situated in.

What's worse, instead of having one large central generator to power every single cannon, each cannon was apparently currently running on their own smaller generators, meaning either the marines of the Ninth Fleet had to take out each individual cannon or they had to wait for the smaller generators to run out of juice before their Goblins could start landing mission-critical equipment, meaning that the marines on the ground responsible for securing the LZ we're currently getting their asses shot off waiting around.

" _Why the fuck is Murgen not handling this one? We're better off down in the facilities, picking off their commanders and shit,"_ Alex complained even further. Unlike his two fellow N7's he had no qualms about openly voicing his opinions about the decisions of their superiors.

Locke couldn't blame him, this really was a job for the Jaegers. Had he been in charge Locke would have had the Jaegers on standby to assist the marines of the 63rd. Instead his team and three others were tied up in orbit when they could have been more of use assisting the marines on the ground.

But orders were still orders, and Locke didn't particularly care what role he had to play in order to get the mission done. He only cared about making it back in one piece so he could continue his _true_ mission.

" _We'd also be better off if you'd keep your trap shut before we breached, so that Tom and I can have just a little bit of peace and quiet before we get shot at by a bunch of angry slavers,"_ chided Linda.

Alex powered on his M-76 Revenant. The massive red machine-gun extended to its full length with a hiss. " _You know you love it,"_ he chuckled. On the other side of the airlock Linda powered on her omni-tool in one hand and readied her Vindicator in the other.

" _Cut the chatter, breaching in five,"_ Locke told his team. Both of his fellow N7's nodded. It was game time now.

" _Five… four…three…two…MARK!"_ yelled Locke. He slammed his finger down onto the activation trigger displayed on his omni-tool and detonated the charges.

All four charges detonated inward, sending the door flying into the station. Locke was the first one through the breach, grabbing the lip of the airlock and deactivating his mag-boots, swinging himself into the large corridor that the airlock had fed into and re-activating them once his feet had found solid purchase on the deck. As he had suspected there was no artificial gravity, and thanks to the gaping hole left by their charges there was no air either.

He activated his omni-shield just in-time to catch the withering barrage of spikes that the slavers fire at them. Each one felt like a hammer slamming into his shield, hitting much harder than a mass effect-propelled slug would. For a moment Locke was stunned in place by the barrage, locked into place by the overwhelming batarian gunfire.

But his training kicked in mere moments after. Locke brought both his feet together, disengaged his mag-boots and _jumped_ straight into the air, keeping his entire body behind his omni-shield and keeping the shield between him and the deadly spike-fire. The force of the fire pushed him to the ceiling where he re-activated his mag-boots and latched on, still on the defensive.

" _Eight hostiles with spike-rifles, six clumped at the front, two at the back,"_ he quickly radioed to his team.

" _Roger that,"_ Linda replied.

All eight of the batarians were currently firing all they had at the N7 on the ceiling of the corridor, and in their bloodthirst they neglected to cover the ragged hole that Locke had came through, leaving them exposed to the other two N7's who had been waiting patiently outside.

An armored arm with a red-stripe running down it and an activated omni-tool glowing around its fist suddenly appeared around the lip of the shattered airlock and released a massive Overload charge. The blue bolt arced into the six slavers, shorting out their shields and causing them to seize in place. One of the two slavers who'd been standing at the back barked something in his coarse, native tongue and pointed at the airlock.

But it was too late, a second armored figure also bearing a red-stripe on his right arm pulled himself into the airlock and silently unloaded into the stunned batarians with his M-76 Revenant. Staff Lieutenant Alexander Avery cut them down without a word, his loquacious tendencies being completely subdued once he started taking lives.

There was nothing to take cover behind. The two batarians shifted their weapons towards the exposed N7, howling furiously over the loss of their brethren, and squeezed their triggers.

Locke released his mag-boots and pushed off the ceiling to propel himself in front of his vulnerable comrade. He brought his shield up between him and Avery just in time to catch the barrage of spikes.

Staff Lieutenant Linda Churchill ended the barrage with two well-placed bursts that destroyed the fragile spike-rifles. Another pair of bursts chewed through their shields, allowing Locke to take out the last two slavers with well-placed headshots from his M-5 Phalanx. Both batarians slumped over alongside their fellow slavers. It was a gruesome sight, the way the slavers bodies remained limply upright, held in place by their mag-boots.

The whole encounter had taken less than fifteen seconds, and thanks to the lack of oxygen in this part of the station had occurred without a sound.

" _Let's move, the boarding party is still pinned down,"_ Locke told his team over the comm.

Both the other N7's flashed green acknowledgement lights and readied their weapons. Together the three moved towards another door that would lead deeper into the facility.

It suddenly opened and a quartet of slavers appeared in the doorway. Linda's omni-tool flashed blue and another Overload charge short-circuited their shields. Locke advanced in a crouch with his omni-shield held sideways so that both he and Avery could fire over the edge of his shield on the defenseless slavers while the shield protected both of their torsos. Their weapons coughed soundlessly and the four batarians died as their comrades did, fixed in place with their bodies limp.

The team moved forward. A cloud of reddish batarian blood floated in front of the entrance of the doorway but the three N7's paid it no heed, travelling through it without a word of complaint. The ghastly fluid coated their armor, giving each of them the appearance of having literally bathed in the blood of their enemies.

They passed through the doorway into another vestibule with an airlock at the other end. Linda pressed a nearby button, causing the door behind them to slam shut. With a loud hiss the little vestibule began to fill up with oxygen as the facility's VI registered that station breach had been isolated.

With the danger and the immediate threat removed, Avery's mouth resumed its primary settings. " _How many slavers do you think they've got manning this place? From the outside I'd say that we can expect up to a hundred, but I seriously doubt that the slavers have the manpower to garrison each of their cannons with nearly a full company. I'm betting that—"_ he prattled on.

" _Atmosphere is breathable, artificial gravity is online,"_ Locke informed his teammates, completely brushing aside his fellow N7's commentary.

" _Should we stick to private comms?"_ Linda asked.

" _Yes,"_ Locke nodded. " _We'll go loud once we make contact with the marines. Let's move."_

Locke took point through the airlock with his shield held horizontally to protect both him and Avery. The Staff Lieutenant snapped his mouth shut, even though technically no one could hear him through his sound-proof helmet, and followed behind, his weapon just raised over the lip of Locke's shield. Churchill followed three meters behind, omni-tool ready.

They passed through the airlock into a corridor. Locke could hear the faint sounds of gunfire interspersed with the guttural bark of the batarian tongue and the muffled shouts of marine voices. Although technically Locke's team could head directly to the generator in each station and shut down the planetary defense cannon from there, the two platoons assigned to take this station had radioed in reporting heavy casualties. As a fellow Systems Alliance marine, Locke wasn't about to just leave them hanging.

" _Third and fourth platoon, 1st/63_ _rd_ _, should have boarded at the hangar bay approximately twenty-five meters away, under the command of First Lieutenant Steven Vallon. Second Lieutenant Gowri Chaudhaury is KIA. Fifteen dead and twelve wounded, they were ambushed right out of their shuttles,"_ Linda reported to the team.

" _Where's the generator?_ Alex asked.

Linda pulled up the schematic to double check. " _There's a door in the hangar bay. Ten meters down that corridor, hook a left, then your first right, and a left again, and straight down that one 'til you hit the generator. Easy-peasy."_

The sounds of battle echoed even more loudly now. Locke increased his pace, eager to save some marines. The two platoons had about half of their men in fighting condition still, and unless he double-timed it that number could potentially drop to zero before he could so much as blink.

" _Got a plan, Lieutenant Commander?"_ Alex whispered over the comms.

Locke holstered his pistol and pulled out a pair of arc grenades with his spare hand. Normal grenades might risk causing a blow-out, hence the N7 had opted for the non-lethal ones instead. Non-lethal was a bit of a misnomer though. Arc grenades not only drained your shield, but unless you were wearing specialized armor they'd leave you stunned and twitching for the better part of half a minute, making you easy meat for anyone with a rifle.

" _Stun and neutralize,"_ Locke simply said.

" _What, no stealth recon? No optics cable? We're not even going to attempt to hijack their security grid?"_ Linda said in amusement.

" _We've got no time, men are dying."_

The N7's made their way to the entrance of the hangar bay without encountering any further hostiles. Likely the slavers on board had split up into three groups – one to guard the escape airlock that his team had come through, one at the generators, and the largest one at the hangar to repel the marine boarders.

Linda and Alex each stacked up on one side of the entrance while Locke stood in front of the doors, his omni-shield raised and his grenades still in hand. He gestured to Linda and the female N7 pressed on the door's activation button, making them slide open and revealing to the team the carnage currently taking place inside the hangar bay.

A ruined shuttle lay smoking and burning at the back of the hangar bay, several charred and blackened marine bodies around it. Marines were hiding behind the other three shuttles returning fire at batarian slavers in bladed armor firing at them from behind make-shift barricades. From the looks of it these slavers had had time to put together fortifications and set a trap before the marines had arrived, and it had been highly effective.

" _Third and fourth platoons, friendlies coming in from behind the batarians!"_ Locke exclaimed on the marine channel.

A shout of hope went up from the marines. Locke and his team were positioned directly behind the batarian slavers and their barricades, who amounted to roughly two platoons but had better cover and harder-hitting weapons compared to the Alliance marines.

He took two steps in and let loose the grenades in his hand. One landed among a group of slavers manning a heavy turret that they had lugged in, while the other landed at the feet of some slaver in a more decorated set of bladed armor who seemed to be directing the ambush. Luckily for Locke, not a single batarian had noticed the door opening or the lone N7 walking in.

The grenades went off, sending nearly a score of batarians to their knees, shields short-circuited.

Linda and Alex rounded the corner. The N7 Marksman put a burst right between the eyes of the slaver commander before either Alex or Locke even had a chance to pick their targets, snapping his head backwards in a spray of brownish-red blood. The slaver commander crumpled to the ground, the black batarian script on his armor covered in his own gore, his bladed pauldrons scratching the hangar floor.

Alex opened up with his M-76 Revenant and cut down the stunned slavers who knelt twitching around the heavy turret. Linda let loose another four bursts that killed the batarians who had been standing around the commander, then twisted back around the corner, weapon venting heat.

" _Swapping heat-sinks!"_ she exclaimed.

Many of the slavers turned at the sound of gunfire coming from behind their lines and were stunned by the sudden appearance of the bloodied bodies of their commander and fellow slavers. Their fire towards the marine line slackened ever so slightly.

It was a shock that Locke was quick to capitalize on. With a low growl he leapt towards the nearest slaver and slammed his omni-shield like an axe towards the batarian's face. The force of Locke's blow paired with the sharpened edge of the silicon-carbide shield allowed it to bypass the batarian's weak kinetic shields and nearly sheer the slaver's face in half. His face erupted in a fountain of blood, the bottom half of his jaw flapping uselessly, coating the front of Locke's armor even further.

A couple of the nearby slavers let out terrified shouts at the sight of the blood-soaked N7 nearly severing their comrade's face in half. Locke didn't let up on his advantage. He brought his shield down in a vicious downward swing and sliced open the chest of another slaver on his left before whipping it around in a wide arc to cut through the throat of another on his right. His free hand then grabbed his M-5 Phalanx from his holster and emptied four shots into the helmet of a fourth slaver.

By then Alex's M-76 Revenant had overheated and he had swung back behind the corner to reload. Linda took the opportunity to swing back around and start targeting batarians trying to draw a bead on Locke, blowing out face-plates and kneecaps and occasionally letting out Overload charges.

In thirty seconds nearly a third of the batarians had been killed. The marines began to rally and lend their fire to the fight, opening up on any of the slavers who were preoccupied with trying to deal with the N7's.

A marine lieutenant waved his arms and urged his men forward. "Go! Charge them down!" he yelled.

Angry roars erupted from the thirty-odd marines still on their feet. They rushed at the slavers who were caught between the three N7's and a platoon of pissed-off Systems Alliance jarheads. A few more marines fell but the majority of them made it to the barricades, leapt over, and engaged the slavers in close quarters.

Locke dodged the bladed vambraces of an attacking slaver and slammed his omni-shield into the batarian's face. He triggered the shock setting, stunning the batarian and causing him to sizzle with electricity. The N7 placed the barrel of his phalanx just beneath the slaver's chin and pulled the trigger. Linda shot a submission net out of a slaver's hands, saving a pair of marines, while Alex simply gunned down everything in his sights, hitting each of his targets with two seconds of sustained fire.

Locke watched as the marine lieutenant ducked beneath a jagged sword wielded by a batarian and emptied his clip in the slaver's stomach. Another one tried to tackle him – to impale him on his bladed pauldrons – but the marine lieutenant spun around and dodged the attack, firing into the back of the slaver and leaving him open to the gunfire of another one of his marines.

The slavers fought to the last man, fought harder than anyone Locke and his team had ever fought before. Locke knew that Bahak was the slaver's last stand. The Slaver Fringe War had been going on for nearly five years – five years of cat and mouse between the Systems Alliance and batarian extremists who had turned to enslaving refugees of the Reaper War in order to re-build their shattered empire. It had been a long, grueling war of attrition as the Systems Alliance had hunted down each slaver stronghold, scattered across the galaxy.

Locke slammed his omni-shield into the stomach of the last slaver, who groaned and dropped to his knees, his hands trying desperately to keep his guts inside him. Rather than let him suffer, Locke placed the barrel of his M-5 Phalanx to the batarian's forehead and mercifully ended it. The echo of that final gunshot ushered in a sense of calm and quiet that contrasted heavily with the harsh sounds of battle that had covered the hangar bay mere moments before.

Now there was nothing left but the groaning of wounded marines and the hurried footsteps and the reassuring whispers of the medics trying to treat them.

 _Made it through another one, dear,_ Locke thought. His fingers brushed over his chestplate, resting momentarily atop the spot where he kept a picture in a hidden compartment and giving thanks to it for seeing him through yet another fight.

The marine lieutenant made his way over to the N7's. His helmet was off, a lucky blow from a slaver with a bladed gauntlet had crushed half of the visor but had thankfully spared the lieutenant's face. He was young, maybe in his early twenties. A pair of Gunnery Chief's flanked him, one with blood trickling down the joint of his arm and the other with a series of burn marks on half his armor.

"First Lieutenant Steven Vallon, we owe you a big one El-Cee," the lieutenant greeted. All three of the marines saluted, then Vallon held out his hand which Locke took and gave a firm shake. Lieutenant Vallon then did the same for Linda and Alex.

"Think nothing of it, we only wish we'd gotten here sooner," Locke replied.

"Still, we appreciate it nonetheless. The bastards took out Chaudhaury's shuttle right off the bat and tore through half of my platoon as they were leaving. Without you guys we probably wouldn't have made it."

Linda stepped forward with her Vindicator held tightly across her chest and addressed the marine. "Lieutenant, I'm sorry about your men, but we've got to shut down this facility asap. There are still marines on the ground relying on us to get these guns down."

"Of course," nodded First Lieutenant Vallon. He turned to his two gunnery chiefs and issued his orders. "Amadou, keep your squad here and take care of the wounded, get 'em prepped on one of the shuttles. Theo, round up the rest of the men who can still fight. We're accompanying the N7's to the generator."

"Sir," saluted both gunnery chiefs. One of them went off to one of the shuttles while the other started rounding up the marines that weren't bleeding. Linda nodded, satisfied, while Alex and Locke both slipped new ammunition blocks into their respective weapons.

In under a minute they set off for the generator, with the N7's in the lead and around a dozen marines following behind them. Linda had highlighted the route on their schematics, and like they had determined earlier, it wasn't a particularly long way away.

They made it to the doors to the generator without running into any more slavers. As Locke had surmised, the surviving slavers on board the facility had likely decided to make their final stand here.

The N7's stacked up in their customary breaching positions with the marines split up into two groups to either side of them. Locke stood in the middle, his omni-shield at the ready. He'd be the one to soak the majority of the first wave of fire, buying time for his allies to slip into cover and start returning fire at the batarian positions.

" _No optics probe? Stealth recon?"_ Linda repeated again.

" _Now can we hijack the security cameras?"_ Alex chuckled, weighing in on his fellow N7's joke.

Locke didn't reply. Instead he signaled for Linda to open the door once more. His fellow N7 dutifully slapped on the trigger and the doors slid open. Both Alex and Linda slid a pair of flashbangs into the room, the twin cylindrical devices going off like mini-thunderclaps and working super-effectively against the photo-sensitive four eyes that the batarians had.

Locke was careful not to stare at the devices. He stepped through with his shield raised and his pistol out. With lethal precision he gunned down a trio of batarians clutching at their eyes with a series of precise shots. A couple of batarians blindly fired a few salvos in his general direction but he caught them on his shield with ease.

The generator was in the middle, and Locke could see that the batarians had constructed a rough barricade in front of the console that controlled it. The rest of the room was a series of large consoles on slightly-elevated platforms lined with rails and a few over-turned tables.

Linda and Alex were both first through the door, followed by the marines. They both started fanning out along the perimeter of the room, taking up cover behind consoles or behind the elevated platforms, forcing the batarians to split their fire into multiple directions. Several batarians went down as they scrambled in confusion to try and adjust their aim. Despite their brutal weaponry and their intimidating armor, the slavers were still a bunch of undisciplined thugs at heart.

Locke leapt into action, heading straight for the console and giving the batarians a third problem to deal with. He kept his shield up and maintained a steady source of fire at any slavers who tried to take shots at him. Meanwhile Linda was picking off targets at range and Alex kept up a steady source of suppressing fire. The marines did their best to lend their firepower as well. All of them knew that the generator had to go down soon, or the marine's planet-side would be paste.

A quartet of burly batarians emerged from in front of Locke, all of them with massive blades affixed to random parts of their armor along with black batarian script. Locke rammed into the first one, triggering the incendiary function on his shield and setting the batarian alight. He went down screaming and rolling around while his comrades growled in anger.

He brushed aside the barrel of a one of their spike-rifles with his shield and whipped his M-5 Phalanx up, firing a barrage of shots at its wielder. The batarian pitched over from the bullet-wounds and slumped to the ground. The third one suddenly wilted and folded as Alex riddled him with bullets from his M-76 Revenant, and the last one managed to finally hit Locke in the meat of his upper arm with one a spike from his rifle before Locke cleaved his head in two with his omni-shield.

" _Locke, you're hit!"_ cried Linda. Locke ignored his teammate and slapped the trigger for medi-gel on his armor, his icy-blue eyes never leaving the console to shut down the generator. He leapt over the corpses of the four batarians and continued on towards it like a man possessed, his pistol flipping from target to target, four taps and they'd go down.

A marine suddenly went down with a scream, clutching at a line of spikes that had embedded themselves in his upper thigh. Locke turned, instinctively seeking out the wounded marine. A large batarian in bladed armor holding a smoking spike-rifle grunted in annoyance as it clicked empty. With a derisive snort, he tossed it aside and charged at the cripple marine, intent on tearing him apart to shreds with his bare hands.

Locke watched as the form of the First Lieutenant Steven Vallon imposed himself between his marine and the batarian, firing his M-7 Lancer at the hulking, four-eyed brute and screaming angry curses. The batarian's shields crumpled after the first burst but somehow his armor held together long enough for the batarian to duck beneath the Lieutenant's rifle and slam his bladed shoulder into the marine's thigh.

First Lieutenant Vallon gave a cry of pain and fell onto his back with the batarian atop of him, screaming in agony and clutching at his thigh. The bladed pauldron in combination with the weight and acceleration that the batarian had put behind it had sliced into the marine's leg right above the knee, where nothing but the undersuit covered the joint, and had nearly severed it completely. Only a thin strip of flesh and meat kept both halves of the leg together. Locke could see shattered bits of femur jutting out from the gaping wound.

The N7 halted mid-sprint towards the console and instead ran towards the downed marine. The slaver crouched on top of the lieutenant had pulled out a large, serrated blade and was currently holding it poised above his heart.

" _Alex! Get to the console!"_ Locke screamed.

" _On it!"_ the Staff Lieutenant replied. Marine gunfire was starting to overpower the hiss that the Spike-rifles made as more and more slavers fell.

Time seemed to slow down for Locke as the hairy, grizzled hand of the knife-wielding batarian began to descend towards the marine. He was only three feet away now from the two now.

A line of spikes flew mere inches away from his face but Locke was unperturbed. He was only vaguely aware of one of his teammates yelling at him, Linda maybe, and could barely feel the wound in his upper arm that he'd taken mere moments ago. He pulled his omni-shield back and sent it scything towards the back of the massive batarian's head.

The sharpened lip of the silicon-carbon shield dug right into the neck-seal of the slaver's suit and cleanly parted the slaver's head from the rest of his body. The large batarian gave a little jerk as the nerves in his body were suddenly disconnected from his brain, and the knife fell from lifeless fingers before it could finish its journey into the wounded marine. The body of the batarian flopped down onto the Lieutenant and the head rolled away.

Locke twisted back around just in time to see the last slaver fall to a headshot from Linda and for Alex to slam his fist on some sort of button at the central console. With a loud hum, the generator fell silent and the planetary cannon with it.

Locke gave a sigh of relief. There were maybe half a dozen marines still on their feet, and Alex had a nasty gash on his left leg where he'd taken a glancing shot on his run to the console. He unsealed his helmet with a hiss and set it down on the console beside him and deactivated his omni-shield.

"Alex, let's get these wounded back to the shuttles," Locke ordered.

"Yes sir," the man replied. Alex made his way towards a pair of marines now huddling over the lieutenant, his med-pack held in his outstretched hand. The medi-gel issued to N7's were magnitudes stronger than the stuff that marine medics had, not to mention the synthstims were of higher quality. With any luck the lieutenant would live, although he'd probably lose his leg below the knee.

"Linda?" Locke called out.

"Yes, Lieutenant-Commander?"

"Radio Admiral Octavian, let him know that the last cannon is down and that they can begin their assault. The fight's not over yet, at least not for the boys on the ground."

"Roger that," Linda replied. She moved off, one finger depressing her comm. unit. Although she had escaped unscathed, not a single spare heatsink for her Vindicator hung from her combat webbing and there were plenty of gashes on her armor that marked the many times that a batarian slaver had gotten lucky and had nearly ended her life.

Locke picked up his helmet and twirled it in his hands, staring at his own reflection in the polarized faceplate. He had survived yet again, had gone up against nearly a hundred batarian slavers with weapons that his kinetic shields would have done nothing against and lived. He'd survived this mission and soon he'd be able to return to his real one. As important as his real one was, he was still an Alliance marine at heart, and that meant that in the meantime he still had a duty to fulfill his brothers and sisters.

 _Just a little bit longer,_ he thought to himself.


	30. Chapter 30 - Underdogs

**Chapter 30 - Underdogs**

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 0624 hours — Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 5, Hangar Bay_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes,"

"Cade, are you goddamn sure about this?"

"YES!"

"You are out of your goddamn mind…"

My friend triple-checked the straps keeping the booster pack attached to the back of his armor. Technically it was already magnetically attached, but Cade had opted for the straps as well – two-inch thick tungsten nylon straps designed to withstand atmospheric re-entry. Couldn't blame him with what he was intending to do.

Cade pointed an accusatory talon at my face, prompting me to roll my eyes. "No, _he_ is out of his goddamn mind," he snapped at Percival. "Going into a nest full of crazy, murderous zealots with just _her_ watching his back…"

"Hey, it might _still_ just be me watching his back," Elektra laughed. She grabbed Cade's booster pack and wiggled it around violently. Cade whirled and slapped her hand away, mandibles flaring.

I gently steered Elektra away while Percival did the same with Cade.

Percival spun Cade around and double-checked his fuel nozzles, straps, and trigger mechanisms. "When's the last time you even pulled one of these landings off?" Percival asked him.

Cade flipped off a still-smiling Elektra and resumed checking his straps. "Illium, off of the old Dantius towers," the turian replied.

Percival stopped and cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. "That tower was like 1200 meters tall, you're going to be jumping from almost ten times that."

"Spirits, you don't think I know that?"

I sighed, grabbed a spare booster pack and clipped it onto my back. I was almost certain that I could use my biotics to completely slow my impact, same as Elektra, but it wouldn't hurt to have a spare one just in case Cade lost his.

"You know that if you lose your booster pack you're screwed right, the booster jets on your armor alone won't be able to take you out of terminal velocity," I told him.

My friend spun and glared at me, his eyes gleaming maniacally and his pupils dilated. "I am one hundred percent aware," he hissed. The very real chance of his jetpack falling off and of him falling to his death made his reaction and irritation at his predicament rather hilarious. The true nature of an individual tends to showcase itself the closer that individual is to death, and Cade's nature was as comedic as they came.

Cade then made sure that his beloved Black Widow and Vindicator was securely strapped to his chest and that his Carnifex pistols tightly holstered to his thighs. He had enough thermal clips to wipe out the entire generator garrison by himself. My Snakebite and my Predator was ready to go. I wouldn't be taking a medium-ranged weapon with me. Elektra had her N7 Hurricane and her Scimitar and her own Predator for back-up. Both of us had almost identical sets of black Ariake Technologies Armor, except hers was trimmed in dark-purple while mine was in dark-blue.

" _Spectres, were almost over the generator facility now, just outside the sensor range of their guns,"_ Val radioed to us.

"Roger that Val, tell the Jaegers and the specialists to get down to the hangar and prep for departure as soon as alpha team leaves," Percival replied. As soon as Val dropped us off, she would drop Percival off with the larger assault team comprised of the Jaegers and assorted specialists we picked up down at the satellite facility. With any luck, we'd soon have control of the generators powering the planetary defense cannons and planet-wide comms. We could begin providing support to the locals and finding out exactly what the hell these defectors were trying to pull on Anhur.

I walked over to the hangar bay doors and pulled the lever. The ramp lowered with a hiss of hydraulics, exposing the hangar to the howling snowstorm outside. The Excalibur's mass effect fields kept the wind out of the hangar but not the cold. I shivered as my armor began adjusting to compensate for the sudden increase in temperature. All I could see outside was darkness and a whirlwind of snowflakes. Fitting, seeing as we were currently in the northern hemisphere of Anhur. Unfortunately, it would also play hell with our landing and our visuals.

Elektra came up beside me and placed one hand on the edge of the ship, gazing out into the ice storm. She already had her helmet on.

" _Pretty,"_ she whispered.

"Cold," I replied.

Cade and Percival joined us on the edge. I could hear Cade taking deep breaths from beneath his own helmet. Percival had crossed his arms over his chest and was staring out into the storm.

" _Did I ever tell you how much turians hate the cold?"_ the turian sighed.

" _Don't worry, I packed you a spare change of thermal underwear just in case,"_ Elektra chided.

My friend hissed in reply, but otherwise kept his eyes trained on the storm ahead of us. The four of us stood there for a moment on the ramp, staring out into the howling darkness. The dawn had not yet come nor would it for a little while longer. We watched the flurry of hail and snowflakes slash through the air, only to be stopped short by the mass effect fields generated by the Excalibur.

I could hear the sound of fabric tightening beside me. Percival was digging his fingers into his biceps. "Reminds me of Bahak," Percival finally grunted. "Except with sand instead of snow and minus the cold. Should be warmer near the cities though."

"This won't be another Bahak," I assured him. Beside me Elektra and Cade both nodded. Cade was shaking wildly and making no effort to hide it. Whether it was from the cold or the sheer terror of the upcoming dive I could not tell. Elektra seemed more steady, but I could notice an almost imperceptible tremor in the hand she had on the edge of the ship.

Val came up on the radio again. " _We're over the facility, good luck!"_

"Roger that Flight Lieutenant! Spectres are departing now!" Percival hollered. The former N7 grabbed Cade in a headlock, rubbed him vigorously on the top of his helmet, then promptly shoved him right off the edge in a very unsafe fashion. I could hear him cursing as he went over. Without missing a beat, Elektra quickly blew Percival a kiss, took two long strides and dove gracefully off the ramp as if she were diving into a swimming pool.

I sealed my helmet onto my head and turned to Percival. He smiled and held out one hand in front of his chest. I took it and he pulled me into a half-hug.

"Be careful down there, don't let those two get themselves killed," he yelled.

I gave him a thumbs-up in reply. My heart was beating a mile a minute. It suddenly just occurred to me that I'd soon be killing again. Real, sentient beings this time, not just mindless monsters. At least they were sentient beings that wanted to kill a bunch of innocent people, so I guess that was a silver lining.

Unlike Cade who been virtually thrown out and Elektra who had elected for a totally impractical but flashy exit, I merely took a step off the edge and let myself fall.

Gravity immediately took hold. I maneuvered so that I was head first and kept my arms tucked as close as possible to try and minimize the winds effect on my trajectory and to catch up to my fellow Spectres. It was pitch black outside. I could see absolutely nothing except the occasional snowflake or ice chip hitting my visor. An altitude gauge immediately lit up on my heads-up display, alongside a temperature reading. The sudden drop in temperature had my suit's thermos-regulators struggling to keep me warm.

The wind howled outside my helmet, shaking it violently. " _Cade, Elektra, status?"_ I barked.

" _Green, lighting up my nav now,"_ my friend replied.

" _Ditto and ditto,"_

Two green arrows with a small distance reader popped up on my screen. Elektra was somewhere off to my left while Cade was further down to my right. By now we had reached terminal velocity. We had about thirty more seconds in freefall to go.

A schematic of the facility came up next. I highlighted a landing pad commonly used for troops and supplies and sent it to my friends. " _RV there, expect a hot landing."_ Their acknowledgement lights lit up in reply. The two of them maneuvered themselves so that they were only about a dozen or so meters away from me according to my HUD. The lower we descended the more the snow and wind cleared up. After half a minute I could start to see their forms beside me.

The snow and ice began to let up as we continued to descend. The facility and the landing pad came up in sight. The facility itself was situated at the top of an ice shelf. It was about as large as you would expect a school to be, no more than two floors tall. In the center was a huge dome that probably housed the generator itself. Massive AA guns were situated along the perimeter, but thankfully none of them were active right now.

" _Two hostiles on the landing pad!"_ Elektra reported. Two red triangles lit up. I squinted, hard. My HUD eventually managed to outline them in red. Both looked to be human and were clad in what appeared to be Systems Alliance armor that had been painted black.

" _I've got them,"_ Cade called.

A bright flash erupted from the corner of my vision. Cade fired both his booster pack and the jets on his armor, trying to stop his free-fall. I refrained from staring at my friend and instead kept my vision trained on the two tangos, just in case they began to notice the booster flare. After a few nail-biting moments he managed to come to an almost-complete halt in mid-air. He unslung Meera and let out a trio of shots. The two red outlines immediately dropped and stopped moving.

" _Not bad Kitiarian, not bad at all…"_ Elektra remarked.

The landing pad was fast approaching. Elektra and I both twisted so that our boots were now facing the ground. As one, we both activated our biotic powers. My amp sizzled and cracked as it fought to generate the mass effect fields required to slow me down. It was a tactic that came naturally to both the biotically-talented asari or to extraordinarily-skilled biotics but for Elektra and I it had been something we had learned the hard way in the course of our profession. We didn't use it often, but it had saved our lives more than once and it basically worked 100% of the time unless we were both overly fatigued.

We finally managed to arrest our momentum. I deactivated my fields about two meters away from the landing pad and dropped down. I buckled at the impact and went down onto one knee.

" _Snapped a pic of that for you. Looking dreamy,"_ Elektra quipped. She landed with a good deal more grace than I did, unslung her shotgun and began moving towards the downed hostiles.

I unholstered my Predator and followed close behind her, keeping it trained on the door to the facility. The outside was covered in a thin lair of gleaming ice. It seemed like a pretty standard facility – the cookie-cutter kind you'd find on most core planets or large hubs with their grey metal walls, tinted windows, and complete lack of color. It looked like the old research facility on Mars back in Sol.

She made her way to the downed hostiles and checked the bodies. " _They're neutralized. Don't know if they managed to get a message out though."_

I looked around. No sirens or warning lights had come on, and a squad of defectors hadn't greeted us in a hail of weaponsfire. " _I think we've still got the element of surprise,"_ I told her.

The sound of boosters burning on maximum erupted in the space just above us. I looked up to see Cade trying his best to remove the rest of his momentum, cursing over the radio all the while. Eventually he managed to, but due to how close he was to the landing pad the booster pack began to take him back into the air once more. He shut it off and let himself fall from a height of several meters. At the last second he triggered the booster jets on his armor, propelling him forward and slamming him into the deck of the landing pad with a loud clatter.

He pushed himself up and shook his head. I rushed over and pulled him to his feet. Cade was a crazy bastard for sure, I don't think anyone had ever attempted to use a booster pack to stop a fall from that height before.

" _Spirits, did I get them?"_ he groaned.

" _Center-mass hits,"_ I told him. Those were some impressive shots to make while falling ever so slightly a hundred meters up in the air. I couldn't honestly say that I could have made those shots, but Cade had always been better at snap-shooting with a sniper rifle than I was. It was a turian thing.

" _I am awesome,"_ he said smugly.

I could sense Elektra rolling her eyes from beneath her helmet. She gestured for the both of us to look at the bodies. We obliged.

" _Armor is definitely Systems Alliance, but painted over,"_ she explained. " _On the left is Corporal Alan Ward, on the right is Private Teodor Kovartis. Both are former 9_ _th_ _fleet marines. Check out their chestplate."_

" _Vernon Ward….Bannon Ward… Constantina and Alexander Kovartis…"_ Cade read aloud. Oddly,both of the defectors had a few names scrawled in white paint right beneath their name and rank. That was curious.

" _Family members?"_ I asked.

" _Might be,"_ Elektra shrugged. " _Kind of weird for both of them to advertise their family ties like that."_

" _I thought it was a common practice for humans to inscribe the names of loved ones on themselves,"_ Cade said.

" _Civilians maybe, but that's exactly something marines would do on their armor,"_ I replied.

" _Not like Cloud and I have a lot of experience in the family department, either,"_ Elektra chuckled. She bent down and booted up her omni-tool, holding it over the omni-tools of the dead marines. After a few seconds the advanced scanning program she had installed had copied every security code stored within. She then made copies and sent them to us.

I sighed and attempted to run a hand through my hair, only to remember that I was still wearing my helmet. It was just one more mystery in a bag of mysteries. Luckily this one didn't seem _too_ likely to get us killed. It was just strange. But then again, everything about this mission was strange. A small cell of religious fanatics, sure, but I wouldn't have pegged a full fleet to buy into this transcendence nonsense. A part of me wondered if these marines knew what those tainted Reaper Cores truly did to people, another part of me wondered if they would still be fighting us if they did know.

I opened a channel back to the other assault team to update them on our progress. " _Percival, we've landed. How's it going on your end?"_

" _Loaded up into the shuttles and passing over the satellite facility now, any snags?"_ my friend replied.

" _No, no snags. Cade's in one piece. Be advised, hostiles are former 9_ _th_ _marines, at least over here."_

"… _roger that. Good luck, okay? Radio Val when the guns are down and she'll have Lieutenant Chan come pick you up. Patch in to Camilla as well if you need help hacking their software."_

It wouldn't be easy for Percival to fight his former fleetmates. He had served with them for three years or so as a Systems Alliance marine, then a further three years as part of their N7 detachment. He'd told me stories of his time in the Ninth Fleet. I wasn't sure if he still kept up with his friends in the Ninth, but I hoped for his sake that any close friends he had made had been part of the ten-percent who hadn't elected to mass defect.

" _Roger that Perc, proceeding with the mission. Good luck to you too man,"_ I replied.

" _Bye dad,"_ Cade chuckled. He stowed his Black Widow and unslung his Vindicator battle rifle, slipped an armor-piercing block inside, and stacked up beside Elektra. I took up position on the opposite side of the door.

" _Stay stealthed until we make contact. Elektra first, then me, and Cade at the back. Schematics show that the control systems and the main reactors should be in the center. Try not to shoot them,"_ I ordered, with special emphasis on the last part.

" _Yes dad,"_ Cade replied.

" _Stop that,"_

" _I think it's kinky,"_ Elektra. I bit back the urge to tell them both to shut up. Cade's one-liners during a mission were bad enough.

I instead ignored her and activated my tactical cloak. My two friends did the same an instant later. I activated my omni-tool and waved the doors open.

Elektra slid in first with her Katana raised and ready, followed by me and then Cade. The doors slid shut behind us, sealing us in. The howling of the wind died instantly, and we were suddenly made aware of exactly how quiet it was in here.

The large corridor we were in was brightly lit. There were benches along the sides and a further set of doors at the end that led deeper in. Windows ringed both sides of the walls, allowing one to see outside. The walls were mostly white and well-maintained. The corridor itself must have acted as a sort of security checkpoint.

" _This facility was supposed to be staffed by almost a hundred people,"_ Elektra muttered. She took point and began to lead us down the welcome airlock. The barrel of her gun was kept firmly trained on the next set of doors leading deeper into the facility, but her helmet swiveled back and forth as she kept an eye out for any tripwires. I followed behind her and made quick sweeps of a few adjoining

At the end of the airlock were five decomposing bodies. Four of them were dressed in riot armor from some company I didn't recognize – three batarians and a human, wreathed in old, dried blood. The batarians looked like they had all been killed with precise center-mass bursts, but the human's throat had been torn out. The last was an asari receptionist slumped behind a desk. Blue blood and clumps of gray painted the white walls behind her. She had a single entry wound in her forehead.

" _I bet it was,"_ Cade replied.

" _That throat wound… Could they have enlisted vorcha?"_ the female Spectre wondered.

" _It's not vorcha… not with the way those batarians were shot…"_ he hissed.

" _Then they are—,"_

" _Turians,"_ Cade finished.

I didn't spare the bodies another glance and instead gestured for my friends to move past the airlock doors. We couldn't help them now. We could, however, deliver a certain form of justice.

The doors slid open and we proceeded further in. More bodies, this time a salarian and a human tech, gunned down from behind while they were working at a maintenance panel. Cade said a silent prayer but otherwise we padded onwards towards a branching intersection.

The slight sound of metal boots on deck plating from further in the facility drew both Cade's attention and mine. He lit up a warning sign on our HUDS before I had a chance to. I quickly moved to take cover behind a row of chairs, trusting Elektra and Cade to take up similar vantage points, and double-checked my Predator. The boot-steps began to get louder and louder. It wasn't the casual cadence of a group on a leisurely patrol, but the cadence of a group of soldiers moving with intent.

I saw them round the corner at the intersection further ahead. All six were dressed in blackened Systems Alliance marine armor, four of them were males and two appeared to be females. Four of them had standard-issue Avengers while the two in front had Katana shotguns. They were headed down the corridor towards us in rows of three, weapons up.

"T and Ward are still not responding," one of the female marines hissed.

"Damn," the one in the lead cursed. "Raise the ala-,"

That was our cue. Biotic energy flared up in my left hand and I knew from more than a hundred ambushes with the turian that Cade was about to strike.

But before either of us could react the sound of a striking thunderbolt suddenly erupted in the room with a loud boom, followed by the pungent stench of ozone and cries of pain. I cursed inwardly as Elektra suddenly reappeared in the middle of all six marines. She hadn't even given me time to prime them yet.

The enemy marines were either hunched over or on the ground and doubled-over. Elektra slammed her palm into the helmet of the closest marine, snapping his head up and laying him flat out onto his back. She lashed out with one foot to slap away the barrel of an Avenger that one of the recovering marines had started to point at her and whipped her other foot into the side of his head with a spinning kick, sending him back down onto the deck. She quickly pulled out her Predator and put four quick bullets into the helmets of both the downed, shield-less defectors.

Meanwhile the two shotgun-wielding marines had recovered and were starting to spin around. Three bursts came from my left, the first two draining the shielding of one of the marines and the third snapping his head forward in a spray of blood. Elektra moved in towards the second marine, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun in a risky maneuver and swept it aside. It discharged with a roar, completely shattering the shields of one of the marines who had been standing behind her. She blindly whipped her pistol over her shoulder, blind-aiming behind her where the marine was stumbling from the shotgun blast and letting loose a flurry of shots. Small squirts of blood spurted out of the marine's chestplate where her bullets had penetrated. Before he had even fallen she had emptied the rest of her clip into the helmet of the marine holding the shotgun.

That left one more enemy marine. He had his back turned towards Cade and I and was trying to get a bead on Elektra through his friend and failing.

A red marker suddenly appeared over the marine and Cade's acknowledgement light blinked yellow on my HUD, signaling for an assist. I rolled my eyes and stood up, blue lights still wrapped around my left hand.

I took a moment to concentrate my focus on the marine, then I thrust my left hand out with my fingers in a half-curled position. The enemy marine was suddenly outlined in blue and lifted into the air. His Avenger dropped onto the deck with a clatter as his fingers curled around his throat. I could hear him begin to choke.

I squeezed my left hand into a fist. There was a slight snap and the choking stopped.

Cade clapped mockingly beside me. " _I was hoping you'd do that."_

I uncloaked and shook my head. _"You are one sick bastard,"_ I sighed. I hadn't killed someone like that since the Hippocrates, back in the generator room. It took a lot of concentration and precision that you generally wouldn't be afforded in a firefight, but it was handy in a pinch or when you wanted a clean, silent kill from long-distance.

" _You could have shot him."_

" _Would have taken too long, plus Elektra was in the way,"_ I said crossly. Unless you went for headshots or were using heavy-calibre weapons, it could take anywhere between half a dozen shots to a full clip from my predator to actually kill an armored enemy if you tried solely for body-shots. Plus, while I was great at shooting, it is actually a lot harder to shoot precisely with a pistol at ranges greater than 10 yards than you'd think.

Elektra stepped daintily over the bodies of the marines she had killed and removed her helmet. Her face was flushed and a bit sweaty. I moved up with my Predator aimed at the intersection to check the bodies.

" _You should have waited for me to prime them with a singularity,"_ I told her.

"I didn't need your singularity," she replied. "Didn't need it before, don't need it now." She brushed past me and knelt down beside the bodies of the marines she had just killed. She grabbed their tags and then pointed at a few more names inscribed on their armor. "Look, more names," she said. She pulled out the dog tags, looked at them, then looked down at the names. "Some have similar surnames, others don't. I'm not sure I see a pattern here."

Cade came up and snapped a few pictures of the names with his omni-tool. " _I'll get one of the techs to pull up a search later, maybe it'll tell us something_ ," he shrugged.

" _Do it once we're clear, don't want anyone triangulating. Also, swap positions with me."_ The turian operative nodded, then took up position between Elektra and I.

We re-cloaked and began to move out. Elektra still took point with her shotgun out but I had switched to my Snakebite sniper rifle, setting the zoom to the lowest possible setting. It wasn't the best weapon for indoors fighting, but it would give me more precision than my Predator and would allow Elektra to utilize her close-range capabilities for maximum effect. My area-of-effect biotics would be frustratingly useless as long as we were working with Elektra and her own preferred style of fighting. Cade in the meantime could provide mid-range fire support with his Vindicator.

We passed by a lot of rooms with no living persons inside. One room was filled with sleeping cots, half of them filled with victims. Whoever had led the assault on this facility must have attacked in the middle of the night. The wounds on the guards early suggested turians – that made sense, given their enhanced night-vision, discipline, and training. What didn't make sense was the fact that this generator was currently guarded by defectors from the Ninth. As far as I knew, there were no turian spec-ops units embedded in the Ninth.

A thought occurred to me. I pulled up the base schematics, highlighted a location and sent it to my squad. " _Electra, divert here. The SOS was sent from this location, maybe someone's still hiding there, or left more intel."_

" _You've got it,"_ She replied. Cade sent a green acknowledgement light and together we set out down an alternative route. We passed more bodies, all of them bloated and decomposing. I was glad we had our helmets on, since it meant we couldn't smell them. A part of me chaffed at how disrespectful these defectors had been. It had been one week since the distress signal had gone out and they hadn't made a single effort to pay any respect to the dead.

" _Cafeteria up ahead, we're going to need to pass it to get to the operations room, wide open space, perfect place for a good crossfire,"_ Elektra radioed.

Years of working with Cade had given me a sixth sense for things he was likely to say in any given situation. " _Oh boy, I've always wanted to be in a human—,"_

" _Foodfight,"_ I finished.

"— _foodfight. I hate you, you know that?"_

" _Let me die in the next firefight then,"_ I scoffed. He wouldn't. No one else was going to heal his scaly ass in Galaxy of Fantasy.

" _Don't tempt me. Next time some defector lines up a shot on you I might just let them take it."_

" _I remember why I hate working with you guys,"_ Elektra sighed. " _We're just outside the cafeteria."_

We stacked up a few meters away from the doors. They weren't sliding ones, but the rather old-fashioned swing doors with the funny round windows you could see through.

" _Check it out,"_ I told Cade.

" _You check it out…"_

" _Can you stop being a child? We are on a goddamn mission."_

" _I'm not being a child, I just don't enjoy getting my face blown off from a lucky shot."_

Before I could say anything else, Elektra's ghostly figure was already at the doors. It was hard to tell with her cloak on, but she probably stopped and twisted to shoot Cade and I what I presumed to be a dirty look from beneath her polarized visor. I shrugged sheepishly even though she couldn't see it. She peered through and checked around for a moment, then gave us the green light.

"Seems _all clear, scanned it with enhanced thermal too, so they're likely not cloaked."_

" _Roger,"_ I replied. " _Take point."_

" _Sure, and for the record I think you are a terrible agent-in-command."_

" _Noted, feel free to file a report with the oversight committee."_

The cafeteria was empty, big enough to fit the maybe a hundred or so people that used to staff this place all at once. None of the long benches had been moved to form barricades, nor were there any bodies. I kept my Snakebite trained on a pair of doors that led to the kitchen. It was eerily quiet except for the slightest of sounds that our boots made against the gunmetal floor. We passed through the cafeteria without problems, which was a welcome change of pace from our usual mission. Of course, that just meant that the defectors had probably consolidated all their remaining troops in the generator room. A missing squad is something that tends to get noticed really, really quickly, contrary to what the directors of Blasto would have you believe.

" _Schematics show that the operations room is just ahead,"_ Elektra reported.

Cold molten slag on the edges of the doors was evidence of a failed attempt by some of the facility staff to barricade themselves in. Elektra went first while Cade and I covered the hall. After a moment her green light lit up and we moved on in. The ops room was small, maybe the size of a bedroom, just a couple of consoles meant to be staffed by maybe half-a-dozen people tops.

Cade and I deactivated our cloaks. " _Elektra, guard the door. Stay stealthed,"_ I ordered.

We made our way to the console in the front of the room. Slumped in a chair directly in-front of it was a decomposing human corpse. I could see the remnants of a single bullet-wound in his forehead.

Cade pressed a button on his helmet, causing it to bloom front and allowing him to remove it. He gave the corpse a long, lingering look and then let out a small, sad sigh. "These were all just _civilians_ , they weren't affiliated with any military, not like the scientists on the Hippocrates."

I gently removed the nametag off of the body. "Operations chief Simon Merryweather," I read, "his friends were dying around him and he still had the presence of mind and the courage to go and get a distress signal out. Without him we wouldn't have known about Anhur."

" _Without him everyone on this planet might have been dead and no one would have known. Thanks to him we can still save some people, and get some goddamn revenge,"_ Elektra pointed out.

"Justice is not optional," Cade agreed in a rare moment of solidarity with the female Spectre. "I'll try to access the security cameras, see what we're dealing with in the generator room."

I nodded and looked around, looking for anything that might give us an edge. As good as we were, the three of us would still be up against an entrenched, platoon-sized force. I booted up the panel and used my Spectre override to gain access to the administrative system. I flipped through life support, generator schematics, multiple base schematics, fire suppression systems…. anything that would give us an advantage.

Cade came up beside me and sighed. "They wiped the footage and nuked the camera system. I can't tell what's waiting for us in the room."

" _So we do it the old-fashioned way, bullets and biotics,"_ Elektra shrugged.

"Yeah," scoffed the turian Spectre, "maybe if you want to die. We can handle five or six hostiles per person at once in a firefight but these are former alliance marines, not gang thugs or some inexperienced PMC—Plus they will be waiting for and expecting us, and they've had the past week to set up defenses."

" _So we improvise."_

I ignored them and continued checking the systems, though I agreed with Cade. It wouldn't just be former Alliance, there was a good chance there was a troop of turian special commandos stationed here too—commandos who had wiped out an entire base of almost one hundred people who managed to get off nothing more than a four second distress signal. That meant highly-trained troops with tactical cloak at least. Spectres were honestly more spies than soldiers. No, we likely wouldn't be able to take them in a straight up firefight.

Something was nagging at me. I flipped back to review a few more systems, pausing on one system in particular.

Cade noticed my piqued interest and glanced over. "Spirits, they still use waterfor their fire suppression systems, what year is it?"

" _It's probably easier to resupply given all the ice and how far north they are, and its technically safer than other gaseous agents,"_ Elektra pointed out.

Could I somehow give myself manual remote access to the fire suppression systems? Yes, yes I could. I quickly flipped to the base schematic too and looked at it in more detail. I quickly found what I was looking for. I began to trace a path with my finger and as luck would have it, I could get where I needed to go.

"Well great. Maybe we can drown them or freeze them to death. Cloud, do you have a plan? Cause the only plan I'm seeing right now is to maybe make some makeshift explosives to even the odds."

One last ingredient. I turned to look at my friend's utility belt. Sure enough, half a dozen of the tiny little innocuous objects were clipped to it as always, having survived the vicious freefall down to the base.

" _Cloud, do you have a plan_?" Elektra echoed.

I pulled off my helmet, ran a hand through my hair and gave a rare, small smile. "You might call it that."

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 0714 hours —Anhur— Planetary Defense Cannon Main Generator, Generator Room_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Team Commander Brutus Mara'kin – Project Transcendence)_

"Teo and Ward still haven't responded, and we've also now lost contact with Peters' squad. We're down to three-quarters strength," reported Lieutenant Hershal. The former Systems Alliance soldier was nearly two feet shorter than the turian commando and several dozen pounds lighter, but he stood tall and unafraid as he gave his de facto superior the bad news.

The hulking Turian commando snarled and slammed a heavy fist into a nearby panel, denting it. No alarms had been raised, meaning whoever had silenced his men were talented, efficient and well-trained—either Spectres or Systems Alliance Special Forces. He wasn't angry, no. On the contrary, Brutus was elated. It most likely the cold one and his turian friend, just like Severus anticipated. Brutus would get the chance to kill not just one, but two talented members of the legendary Spectres.

Brutus pulled out his Claymore and checked the heatsink. It had only been a week of waiting – of guarding this tomb-like facility – but to a fighter like Brutus it had felt like several months. He relished the impending violence and looked forward to the opportunity to stretch his limbs and spill some blood.

"Do you want us to send out another patrol?" The former Systems Alliance Lieutenant asked.

Brutus shook his head. "No, keep the rest of your men here. We will let them come to us. Have the salarians prepare their little drones and remind the asari commandos to focus their attention on the human Spectre. Remember, he's a biotic. Set motion sensors by the door, they will likely have tactical cloaks."

"Yes sir," Hershal acknowledged. He had three squads left alongside the alien specialists that Locke had given him. Brutus wasn't sure it would be enough, but at the very least they would slow and pre-occupy them and buy Brutus and his turians time to get in position to either flank or finish them off. Of all the soldiers here, only Brutus and his three fellow turian commandos had any hope of winning a fight against the Spectres. The salarians were weaklings and though the asari had talent, they were also likely to underestimate their opponents. The human soldiers he could count on, but not enough to count on them beating the Spectres.

The generator room was the largest room in the facility, nearly forty meters in diameter. The generators themselves were the size of small houses and stacked in the center. The ceiling was domed and there was nowhere to place sharpshooters. The room itself consisted of three tiers. The highest tier was a large walkway that ringed the perimeter of the room. Doors from other parts of the facility fed into this walkway, but Brutus had had them welded shut early on to prevent them from being flanked. The outer walkway had numerous consoles from which the enemy Spectres could take cover. Brutus had positioned half of the remaining human soldiers and the asari up on this walkway.

The second level was about six feet lower than the highest level. It was a broader ringed platform that housed numerous holo-tables, crates and consoles from where the former staff of the facility had worked. Brutus had directed the technicians and the other half of the human soldiers to take defensive positions here. Hopefully the Spectres would have their attention drawn by these targets, opening themselves up to a flanking attack either from his soldiers on the upper walkway or Brutus and his Commandos themselves.

Brutus was about to snarl at a pair of salarian techs to get into cover when suddenly alarms began to ring. Seconds later, the sprinklers activated and began showering the defectors in cascades of water. Soldiers began to look around in confusion. Gun barrels flitted back and forth, ignoring pre-established firing lanes.

"Get in position! They're coming!" Brutus barked.

"Team one, eyes on the door!" Hershal shouted. "Team two, keep an eye out on the other ones, they might try to blow their way in!"

Brutus and his turians activated their tactical cloaks, but he snarled as he realized that they wouldn't be of much use. The water from the extinguishers bounced off and cascaded down their armor, outlining them and greatly increasing their visibility.

He turned off his cloak and his fellow turians followed suit. The water would give the same disadvantages to the Spectres anyways, and at least they wouldn't be at risk of friendly fire from their own troops if they decided to keep them on.

The only door to the generator room suddenly opened. Brutus' eyes widened in alarm and he pointed a gloved talon at the entryway. "Suppressing fire!" he roared.

"Fire in volleys!" added Hershal.

A wave of gunfire went straight at the doorway. Instead of joining him, Brutus gestured for his turians to split up. He signaled for two of them to take cover behind one generator while him and another one of his comrades took cover behind another. They held their fire and waited as the former marines continued firing. The room was filled with noise from the gunfire and the water.

Suddenly, three tiny metal cylinders flew through the doorway. Mere seconds later they immediately exploded. Electricity arced everywhere around the upper and middle walkways, hitting nearly every single defector in the room, its effects amplified by the water. The gunfire stopped as everyone began to seize violently, the drones the salarians had put up fell to the ground and there were dozens of loud pops as shields shorted out. Brutus' gritted his teeth in pain as he began to seize up, hoping that the Spectres wouldn't take the opportunity to cut him down while he was incapacitated.

Two ghostly figures immediately appeared in the doorway, outlined in the water. The Spectres had opted to keep their tactical cloaks on apparently. Three more spherical objects went out. Four human soldiers and an asari commando from the upper tier were suddenly lifted up in the air, as well as the pair of salarian techs and a few of the soldiers around them in the middle tier. An overload hit the squad on the upper tier and caused a massive combo explosion while gunfire shredded the shield-less tech squad.

Two figures materialized in front of the door. One of them had the characteristic silhouette of a turian and was clad in the armor of a Ghost Infiltrator – he had to be Kitiarian. The other Spectre was much shorter and slimmer than the turian Spectre. That one had to be the cold one. Kitiarian immediately took cover behind a console and began taking shots at and picking off those who hadn't been affected by the lift grenades with quick, precise bursts to the head. Both asari commandos went down in a matter of seconds as powerful armor-piercing ammunition tore through their relatively weak armor plates.

A sonic boom erupted and the other Spectre materialized among Hershal and his men, knocking them down. The Spectre was smaller than Brutus had pictured, but immediately began dispatching Hershal's men with a mixture of quick and precise hand-to-hand techniques, biotic punches, and a Predator pistol. Before the others could even recover from the biotic charge, three former marines were already dead and a fourth was bleeding from a number of gunshots.

Brutus let out a roar and charged. He discharged his Claymore, cursing as it just barely missed the agile Spectre and clipped a nearby soldier instead, blowing off his arm. His fellow turian let out a more precise burst from his Phaeston. They began to chew threw the Spectre's shields but he spun away at the last moment, disappearing behind a console.

Brutus signaled Hershal to flush him out. The former marine nodded and directed what was left of his men not currently engaged with Kitiarian towards the console the Spectre was hiding behind. At the same time, the big turian and his comrade went another way to try and flank the human Spectre.

A loud shot brought Brutus' fellow Turian Commando down onto his knees a second one penetrated the back of his helmet and blew out his brains in a gory blue spray. Brutus spun around in surprise just in time to see the grate of one of the air vents pop out and another armor-clad human emerged, bigger than the other one. Brutus fired a shot but the human managed to roll out of the way. The large turian ducked behind a console to wait for his weapon to disperse its heat and signaled for his two surviving commandos to hunt him down.

Brutus watched as the other human Spectre took the opportunity to roll out of cover and unleashed a barrage of fire from an N7 Hurricane. The warp ammunition burned and ate through the still-weakened shields of Hershal and his men. With a scream they went down as well. He could see the human lieutenant mouth a few final words before the Spectre coldly finished him off.

Brutus snarled and decided to ignore the smaller Spectre and instead charged at the bigger human Spectre, who had unleashed a massive, well-aimed singularity that engulfed his two fellow commandos and lifted them off the ground. One of the commandos managed to let out a volley of shots while suspended in mid-air that cut through the Spectre's shields, but before he could finish him off three rounds from a Katana shotgun tore through his chest. The other commando managed to grab onto his friend's body and use it as a platform to push himself off and out of the singularity field. He lifted his rifle and took aim at the shieldless Spectre only for an armored boot to knock his barrel away, followed by a palm that crashed into the mandible-guard of his helmet, disorienting him. Another hand deftly pressed the deactivation button on his Phaeston, collapsing it. The commando dropped the weapon, pulled out a Talon combat knife and began to slice viciously at the smaller human Spectre.

The larger human Spectre saw Brutus and immediately swung his weapon at the charging turian. Brutus took aim, only to be hit by an overload from behind. It shorted out his weapon and shields, opening Brutus up to fire from the human Spectre.

Brutus hurled his now-useless weapon at the Spectre, causing the Spectre to miss his shot from his sniper rifle. The large turian grabbed in a bear hug and slammed him against a nearby console.

The Spectre immediately reached for a Predator pistol holstered at his waist, but Brutus grabbed his wrist and used his superior strength to wrench it away and pin it against the console as well. Brutus jammed his armored forearm across the Spectre's neck and began to apply pressure. The Spectre's free hand grabbed desperately at the forearm but was unable to find any purchase. The water was still pouring down from the sprinklers, leaving the armor-plates on Brutus' forearms slick.

A series of shots impacted on Brutus' back but the turian was so enraptured with bloodlust that he barely felt them. The turian commando knew that he would die this day, but if the Spirits willed it he would take this human with him.

The human Spectre kneed him in the gut – hard – but to no effect. Brutus head-butted him violently, slamming the Spectre's head against the bulkhead.

But the human Spectre wasn't giving up. Despite the massive turian's arm against his throat, he managed to deftly unsheathe his own Talon combat knife and bring it down repeatedly into Brutus' neck.

Blue-ish blood spurted out in great gushes down the front Brutus' armor. Every time his heart took a beat, another stream of blood came jetting out. The human Spectre was covered in the turian's blood. It ran down his black armor in tiny rivulets to pool at both of their feet, the water making it seem like there was much more blood than there actually was.

Eventually Brutus could not hold on any longer. His vision began to darken and he was starting to lose control over his arm. The massive turian let go and dropped to his knees with a groan.

The human Spectre went down onto his knees as well. He unlatched his helmet, tossed it aside and began drawing in great gulps of air. Through his dimming vision Brutus could see that he wasn't some grizzled veteran. It was a human – just a young human male with pale skin and blue eyes. A scar covered one cheek and a large red splotch ringed his right eye, courtesy of Brutus' headbutt. His short, black hair lay plastered against face, wet from the water.

The Spectre coughed and looked straight into Brutus' eyes.

Brutus tried to grab the Carnifex holstered at his belt, but his talons felt thick and unresponsive. The Spectre's eyes widened and his hand immediately lashed out with his knife. A new wave of blue ran down Brutus' chest. The turian's last thought before everything went black was how familiar the Spectre looked to the turian commando – how he looked like the ghost of someone he knew.

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 0719 hours —Anhur— Planetary Defense Cannon Main Generator, Generator Room_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

The big turian hit the ground with a loud thud and a splash. I gave a sigh of relief and sheathed my talon. He had been freakishly large and strong – a challenging opponent that I probably wouldn't have been able to beat had we fought in a fair fight. Lucky for me the fight had been anything but fair. The archaic fire suppression system had been a stroke of luck, allowing us to amplify the effects of Cade's arc grenades. Plus I had the support of not one but two talented Spectre operatives during that fight.

I rubbed my throat with a groan and picked up my helmet. The other defectors were dead, courtesy of either Elektra or Cade. I would likely have a wicked bruise on my throat, eye and wrist over the next few days but I was otherwise I would suffer no lasting harm.

Elektra ran over to me while Cade checked the bodies. "You hurt?" she asked. She grabbed my face and peered at the damage with concern.

I shook my head. "No real harm done. He was tough though, I'll give him that," I said, nudging the turian with my boot.

"He's a big bastard. His buddies were a shade more talented than your average commando too. I've never seen anyone break out of a singularity before."

"Me neither, most bad guys don't have the greatest understanding of mass or gravity."

I wiped water out of my eyes and booted up my comm-link, searching for a connection to the Excalibur. After a few seconds it patched me through to Excalibur engineering. I then ran to a panel, turned on my omni-tool and began to bypass the defense systems.

"Camilla, it's Cloud. We've secured the facility and we're at the generator, starting the up-link now, you should have control of the generator in about two minutes.

" _Cloud! Is Cade okay?!"_

"He's fine," I replied. "Didn't get a scratch on him."

" _Thank god! Okay… I have control."_

I let out a huge sigh of relief. Elektra whooped and Cade's mandibles splayed out in a grin. "Good, have them punch a hole through the blockade and get the Blue Suns fleet through to the planet!"

" _Relaying your orders! Camilla out!"_

I smiled and finally turned off fire suppression system with my omni-tool. The water stopped flowing then, but the effects were nonetheless visible around the room. My smile disappeared as I saw the results of the carnage we had wrought. There were massive pools of red, blue and green water scattered everywhere on the metal floor, with the colors being the deepest and most vibrant closer to the bodies and less so further away. Most of the bodies had ruptured visors or holes in their helmets. Those would have been Cade's targets. Those who had gone up against Elektra sported tell-tale biotic burns and reeked of ozone. Between the two of them they had ended almost twenty-five lives in this room. I had killed two people that entire fight. It was an unsettling sight that left a bundle of knots in my lower stomach.

"Not a sight I'm likely to forget for some time," Cade said in a low voice. Sometimes it was like he could read my mind. He disliked killing as much as any other sane, emotionally healthy individual, seeing it as nothing more than a necessary part of the job. "A part of me almost prefers we'd fought those infected creatures instead. At least I _know_ they're bad to the core."

"Speak for yourself, I'd like to cherish the number of chances I have to fight real people before going toe-to-toe with those creatures," Elektra shuddered.

"You're probably going to die in your first fight with those things. Charging headfirst into those creatures is a sure-fire way of committing suicide, and everyone knows you can't hit anything farther than twenty yards."

I didn't say anything. Instead I gave one last tired sigh and hailed the SSV Excalibur once more. "Val, it's Cloud. We've secured the facility and are ready for evac. What's the status of Percival and his team?"

" _Finishing up the last of the resistance at the satellite facility. It was lightly manned, so not a single friendly casualty. He's already diverted a team and a shuttle your way and we should have planet-wide comms up soon. It's good to hear your voice."_

"It's good to hear your voice too," I agreed. "We'll meet them out on the landing pad in ten."

" _Copy. Stay safe, Spectre."_

I closed the link and headed brusquely for the exit, refusing to give the room and the broken bodies one last glance and risk letting the full weight of what we had done in this room sink in. I had fought and killed people before – even rogue Systems Alliance soldiers, but I had not done so ever since the Hippocrates. Killing felt different now. I had never had a problem before – never hesitated when it came to taking the life of some enemy mercenary or pirate. I tried to remember that these soldiers had killed everyone in this base. I tried to remember that they were trying to kill everyone on this planet – but it wasn't the same. It was a justification that had worked before but it wasn't working now, and I didn't know why. Was something wrong with me?

Whatever my problem was, now was not the time for doubts. I had to be at the top of my game, especially if I was going to save this planet and as many people on it as I could.


	31. Chapter 31 - Battle of Bahak - Part 2

**Chapter 2 – Rendezvous**

* * *

 _February 21_ _st_ _, 2201, 1858 hours — Aboard the SSV New York, in transit to the Kite's Nest, Gunthel System_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption…Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Ten years before the events of the Hippocrates_

 _Fourteen hours before the Battle of Bahak begins._

Percival lay on his bunk with his fingers laced beneath his head, clad in his navy-blue and black Systems Alliance fatigues and staring dully at the metal ceiling above him. He sighed, counting the tiny little imperfections in the metal for the tenth time. Halfway through he stopped to check the clock function on his omni-tool, a ritual that he'd been doing every two minutes for the last hour.

 _Four more hours,_ he thought to himself.

He puffed out his cheeks and blew out a gust of air. Four more hours. Counting and re-counting the imperfections might get him through another hour, dinner would occupy another and after that he had only two more to go. In the young marine's opinion, time couldn't move fast enough for his taste. He had somewhere to be.

A boot leapt into his peripheral vision, heading straight for his head. Quick as a cat, Percival shimmied away just in time to dodge it. The heavy, standard-issue, Systems Alliance marine boot crashed against the back of his bunk with a clatter and fell onto his pillow. Percival leapt up from his bunk and looked around, irritated and eager to find the culprit.

He spotted him right away, a gray-eyed marine a few inches shorter than Percival was and about fifty pounds lighter.

"What the hell, Fairy?" Percival grumbled. He grabbed the offending boot and tossed it on the bunk below him.

"Dude, do you know what time it is?" asked Gunnery Chief James Fairchild. The marine had his other combat in one hand, poised to throw it like a football.

"Four more hours until eleven," Percival replied. Four more painful hours.

James gave him a look of extreme confusion. "No, it is 'nine…teen… hun…dred'," he enunciated slowly, as if Percival was some sort of slow child who'd just given him the blatantly wrong answer to a very simple math question. "Nineteen hundred," he repeated. "As in the time the captain set for our pre-operation briefing."

Percival's eyes snapped open and he jumped out of bed. "Shit, you're right! That's right now!"

"Yeah, I know!" exclaimed James. "All the other platoon CO's are already there! They're fucking wondering where you're at, man!"

The blonde marine lieutenant brushed past his shorter friend in a rush. He'd been so engrossed with his eleven o'clock appointment he'd almost completely forgotten about the briefing.

"Darn, thanks Fairy. You coming with me?" he asked his friend.

"Yeah bro," James replied. "All of the senior NCO's are there too."

Together the marines both dashed out of the barracks, nearly flattening Corporal Duc "Ducky" Nguyen and Privates Kane and Sterling in the process.

"Lieutenant, you're late!" the corporal called out.

"I know!" Percival hastily replied. "Get the platoon together after dinner, I'll brief them then!"

"You got it!" Corporal Nguyen replied. The Vietnamese Systems Alliance marine watched as his commanding officer dashed around a corner, followed closely by the senior NCO of his platoon. The big marine had nearly flattened a pretty combat medic that had been flipping through a chart and hadn't seen him coming.

First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival was supposedly some rising young star in the Ninth Fleet, to hear the rest of the company talk about him, but from what the corporal had seen so far he had yet to be impressed. Granted, Nguyen was a recent transfer from another company, and this would be the first tour they'd serve together, so maybe he'd surprise him yet. The corporal sighed and turned to the two privates beside him.

"The captain's gonna have his ass in a sling," he muttered.

* * *

 _February 21_ _st_ _, 2201, 1904 hours — Aboard the SSV New York, in transit to the Kite's Nest, Gunthel System_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Sixteen hours before the Battle of Bahak begins._

Percival stopped his sprint a couple of feet from the entrance to his assigned briefing room, taking a moment to smooth out his uniform to make it presentable to his fellow officers inside. Beside him James was panting hard, having had a much more difficult time keeping up with his long-legged friend.

The Captain had ceased his briefing upon their entrance. The two of them calmly made their way inside and sat down in the two remaining empty seats, conscious of all the eyes currently on them. Percival coughed in embarrassment and James scratched the back of his head.

Captain Michael Garen, twenty-five year veteran of the Systems Alliance marines and the commanding officer of X-Ray Company stood in front of a holo-projection of Bahak and its defenses, his arms crossed. He starred at his two marines in a quiet fury. Percival knew that he hated being interrupted.

"I apologize Captain," Percival said abashedly, "I was busy doing some last-minute—"

"Don't say inventory," James muttered quietly beside him.

"—Inventory," finished Percival. James pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut.

Captain Garen's jaw tightened and his knuckles went white for a moment as he dug his fingers into his arm. Percival swallowed nervously, but amazingly enough when the captain opened his mouth again it wasn't to admonish Percival but to tell him to take a seat. A couple of Percival's fellow Lieutenants gave him a few sly looks – if the Captain wasn't chewing you out immediately, it wasn't because he'd forgiven you, but because he was saving it for later.

"For the benefit of our newcomers, I'll start from the beginning," the captain growled. He tapped the holo-display and brought up a galaxy map and then tapped a location in the lower portion of the map, blowing it up to show five systems. He then tapped one of the systems and brought up the planets within. "Bahak is the third planet in the Gunthrel System, in the Kite's Nest. As you all know, it is the largest, last and final stronghold of the slavers."

The Systems Alliance had been fighting a guerilla war against a large faction of extremist batarian slavers for a long time now, before the start of what was officially known as the Slave Wars and essentially ever since the Reaper War ended.

It had started with the ending of that last, terrible war. The Batarian Hegemony had been hit hard during the Reaper War, core batarian planets such as Khar'shan, Adek, and Erzsbat had been under Reaper control for almost the entire duration of the war, and so the Hegemony in the aftermath of the war boasted more ruined colonies, more dead and displaced populations, and more shattered military and civilian infrastructure than any other species.

A large portion of the survivors were slavers who had been away from the major colonies when the Reapers hit. This faction wanted desperately to rebuild what they lost, but with so few of the surviving batarians being actual engineers, construction workers or scientists and with the majority of the galaxy focusing their resources on helping themselves or their fellow Council species, the Batarian Hegemony seemed destined to be lost forever. These slavers in their desperation turned to the one other thing that the galaxy had no shortage of after the war to help them rebuild their colonies – refugees.

These desperate batarian slavers captured and stole refugees from every species to help them rebuild their planets, and with their own colonies and governments in ruin the other species of the galaxy was largely helpless to react since they too were still struggling to rebuild and restore order in the aftermath of the war. It wasn't until 2188, nearly two years later, that a Systems Alliance officer saw what these slavers were doing and decided that something had to be done. She formed a branch in the Systems Alliance military known as the Joint Air, Extravehicular, and Ground Recovery Specialists, or "Jaegers" for short, and she went hunting for the lost refugees.

"As you can see," the Captain continued, pulling up a topographical map of the planet, "The surface of Bahak is nothing but sand and slaver facilities, although the majority of them are concentrated here, in this valley which we have simply called Slavers Valley, for simplicity's sake."

He tapped the small valley. From what Percival could see the valley looked almost like a giant crater. Inside were eight facilities surrounded by what looked like mining equipment. There were two entrances to the crater, one on the north side and one on the south. The area around the valley was nothing but sand dunes and rocks for dozens of miles.

"Slaver's Valley was created by an asteroid impact millions of years ago," the captain explained. "It not only created the valley, it also littered it with valuable minerals and metals that the batarians have set up these slave facilities to mine and process."

The Systems Alliance officer took the newly-formed Jaegers and began fighting back against the hardline slavers. For nearly seven years after their formation, the Jaegers would be instrumental in disrupting operations and freeing slaves across all of Council space, allowing the rest of the Systems Alliance military to focus on their reconstruction efforts.

The Jaegers fought the slavers to a bitter standstill after seven long years through hundreds of skirmishes and counter-piracy operations, but that only served to delay the inevitable. It would all boil over in the year 2195 on the human colony of Endurance, where the entire colonial militia fought to the death against invading batarian slavers rather than be forced into servitude. The batarians that raided that colony took such heavy losses from them that after the militia was defeated they killed every single surviving man, woman and child in Endurance in anger instead of taking them as slaves.

After the events of Endurance, the Systems Alliance could not in good conscience tolerate the actions of these batarian slavers any longer or abstain from mobilizing their fleet. Civilian populations in dozens of core Systems Alliance worlds began to demand action. In 2196, the Systems Alliance declared official war against the batarian extremists and began what people soon started to call the Slave Wars. They mobilized their fleets and for four years the Systems Alliance hunted down and crushed slaver planets scattered across the galaxy, liberating countless lives.

The decentralized nature of the slavers made it hard for the Alliance to end the war in one brutal blow, and thus the Slave Wars became a long and tedious affair, with many casualties on either side. The slavers fought from hidden strongholds—planets with large and significant slave and slaver populations—and struck at Systems Alliance weakpoints using guerilla tactics, all the while continuing to enslave as many refugees they could to keep their war machine running and to restore the Batarian Hegemony.

Meanwhile the Alliance was relegated to crushing the slavers wherever and whenever they arose and whenever and wherever they could catch them. With no head of the snake to cut off their fleets instead were forced to scour the galaxy for these strongholds, taking them by brute force from the slavers. When their planets _were_ discovered, the slavers simply fought until they couldn't win, then slipped away. It was through these tactics that the slavers managed to stall the Systems Alliance war machine for four long years.

But with each fallen planet the slavers were forced to retreat and retreat to their dwindling surviving strongholds, leaving trails for the Systems Alliance to follow – trails that eventually all lead to the planet of Bahak.

Captain Garen pulled up a satellite image of a large, purple-ish dome that covered the entirety of the valley.

"The valley is protected by a massive cyclonic barrier. I have no idea how the batarians managed to scrap this thing together, but it makes it impossible for us to land directly in the valley," he explained, tapping at the image. "In order to bring down that barrier we need to bombard it with heavy artillery, which unfortunately we can't get down to the surface because of Bahak's network of planetary defense cannons that the batarians set up."

The captain tapped another button on the display and the image shifted from the valley to the space around Bahak. Percival could see nearly a dozen planetary defense cannons all prohibiting direct approach to the planet's surface. Dozens of Slaver cruisers and transports covered the cannons, bristling with all sorts of weapons.

"Their guns will take out anything larger than a shuttle," the captain sighed, "which means we can't get our Goblin transports containing our heavy artillery down to the ground without first taking out these cannons."

He superimposed a battle-plan over the display of the cannons. Percival could see figures representing the various battlegroups of the ninth-fleet taking up combat positions, fighter squadron deployments, as well as shuttles that represented all three battalions that comprised the Marine Expeditionary Unit that Percival's battalion was a part of.

"The Ninth Fleet under Fleet Admiral Octavian will be engaging the Slaver ships in space and keeping them occupied while the marines of the 63rd with the support of our N7 teams board and take out the generators keeping the cannon powered up. Meanwhile, our battalion and the 78th will go down in the shuttles and secure landing zones for the heavy artillery here and here, supported by elements of the 7th Jaeger Battalion," he explained, pointing at the two entrances to Slaver valley.

"Once the cannons are all down and the slaver fleet is neutralized, the Ninth Fleet will send down the Goblins loaded with the heavy artillery we need to break down the cyclonic shield and our mechanized support. They'll also be bringing down teams of combat doctors to provide immediate care to any slaves we might find in critical condition. Once we're all together, we're going to take the facilities and rescue the slaves. Each of our companies have been assigned to take one in the southern half of the crater, while Zulu company stays behind to cover our asses. Any questions?"

Staff Lieutenant Avery Miller, commanding officer of second platoon and the second-in-command of X-Ray company raised his hand. The captain nodded towards him and indicated that he should speak.

"Captain, what kind of mechanized support are we counting with? And will the batarians count with any sort of mechanized support as well?" the Staff Lieutenant asked. He was a twelve-year veteran of the company and had been the 2IC for the last six. Percival considered him to be a competent and dedicated marine, compared to some of the horror stories that his drill instructors had told him back in training.

"I don't know what the batarians will have cooked up, but once the shield is down we will be counting with M-44 Hammerheads, so you boys better watch your helmets. Visibility might be pretty low down there with all the sand, and we all know that hammerhead pilots can't drive for shit," the captain replied.

The marines in the briefing room all broke out in a round of chuckles. M-44 Hammerheads were Infantry Fighting Vehicles that hoveredoff the ground at a height of about six feet. If the pilots or the marines around them weren't careful, it was easy to cause a gruesome accident. Percival always gave them a wide berth every time he was deployed alongside them, seeing as he was 6'3.

"You can disregard the warning, Fairy. I'm pretty sure you're safe," joked Second Lieutenant Adito Yogambe, commanding officer of fourth platoon. At a height of 5'6 in his boots, Gunnery Chief James Fairchild was currently the smallest marine in the room, tied with Second Lieutenant Alexa Volkov, commanding officer of the fifth platoon.

"Eat a dick, Yogi," James spat. "You'll be safe too, seeing as you're probably gonna be up to your thighs in the sand you fat son-of-a-bitch."

The marines, even Yogambe, laughed at that mental image. In contrast to the ranking NCO of Percival's company, the Second Lieutenant was nearly seven feet tall and weighed nearly two hundred and seventy pounds, which had earned him the nickname "Yogi Bear" in the company.

"Settle down marines," the captain said with a small smile. "That concludes the briefing. Go get your platoons caught up, have a nice meal, then hit the hay, the operation starts at oh-nine-hundred. First Lieutenant Percival, could I have a word?"

Percival felt his cheeks redden and James slipped him a look with raised eyebrows. "You're in trouble," whispered Second Lieutenant Yogambe. His platoon Gunnery Chief crossed his arms and snickered.

The rest of the lieutenants and their gunnery chiefs filed out, leaving Percival, James and the captain. The captain switched off the holo-display, crossed his arms once more over his chest, and looked at James before jerking his head towards the door.

"Gunnery Chief Fairchild, you are dismissed," he ordered sternly.

"Sir!" James saluted. The captain nodded and Fairy immediately spun around and made for the door, but not before shooting Percival an apologetic look.

Percival swallowed nervously and patiently waited for his captain to speak. _Three and a half more hours, just focus on that,_ he thought to himself.

Captain Garen let out a sigh and ran his hand through his short, brown hair. "You've been slipping, First Lieutenant. First the combat drills the other day, then during last week's briefing, and now this. Don't think I don't know what's going on."

Percival swallowed again. "Captain, I—,"

Garen waved his hand. "Shut up and listen, Lieutenant, and don't insult my intelligence by giving me another bullshit excuse. Inventory… I've raised three boys, I know what I'm seeing and I know why. I'm not blind. I can see you in the mess hall, and I see what you're looking at."

That was it then, his secret was out and known by _the captain_ no less. Percival would find himself black-listed so fast his head would spin. All the work he'd put in to graduate at the top of his class on Mars, all those times he'd had to swallow his fears and fight because his men depended on him, all of the blood, sweat and tears he'd poured in to make it this far, all that would have been for nothing.

He gestured for him to sit down. Percival nervously took a seat. The captain pulled up a chair and sat down as well with the chair facing backwards, resting his arms up on the back of the seat.

"Lancelot, you know that the Systems Alliance has rules against this…" the captain began quietly.

The big marine looked down at the ground, shaking fearfully inside at what was coming. "I know, sir," Percival nodded morosely. He couldn't believe that had come so far only to lose it all like this.

The two sat in silence. Percival had met the captain's children once before. The oldest was a surgeon and the middle child had gone into accounting, while the youngest was a marine just like he was. They were all roughly Percival's age, and all of them had seemed like they had looked up to their father. Percival looked up to the captain too. Ever since he had received his father's tags, the captain had been the closest thing he'd ever had to a father figure. It made this encounter all the more painful, but Percival knew that the captain had a duty to perform, a duty not just to him but to the Systems Alliance military.

"Look Lancelot…" Captain Garen sighed, "I'm not going to report anything, as long as you're not an idiot about it. I know the rules and I know the regulations… but I also know that sometimes they're wrong."

Percival blinked in surprise. _What?_ Maybe, just maybe he wouldn't be punished after all. Maybe he would get to remain a

"Like I said, I have three boys," he continued. "And I just wanted to tell you what I told them. You're a damn good marine, Percival, one of the finest I've ever seen, and you've got what I hope to be a long and distinguished career ahead of you."

This was not how he envisioned this going down. The captain was strict, the captain was fair, but Percival had never thought that the captain was _understanding._ He was a military man to the core, a veteran of twenty-five years. His blood was Systems Alliance blue. To hear him openly speak about disobeying rules, _that the rules were wrong,_ shocked Percival.

"But what you're going through now… First of all, let me say that it is beautiful. It can make a marine fight ten times as hard, give a marine the ability to survive terrible, terrible things, and most importantly, make things a hundred times more worth fighting for," the captain told him.

He then leaned in and stared him firmly in the eyes. "But it can also make a marine stupid and reckless. Whether you agree with them or not, there _is_ a reason why those rules are in place…"

Percival nodded, speechless. It did do all that and more. Ever since he'd started he had felt more invincible and somehow more afraid of dying than he ever had. He'd felt stronger and yet more vulnerable, with more to fight for and with more to lose. It defied explanation and the rational mind, and sometimes Percival felt as if he just a man caught in a fast-moving river, unable to escape or outswim the current.

The captain set a hand gently on his shoulder, making the younger marine ever more surprised.

"Worse, it can force a marine to _choose,_ and make no mistake you eventually _will_ have to choose, to choose between it and your duty, a duty that you swore to perform and uphold when you joined the Systems Alliance. That choice, it _breaks_ most marines, Lancelot. It's never an easy choice, and making the wrong one can get you killed, can get your fellow marines killed," the captain said emphatically.

 _And there it was_ , thought Percival. A part of him had known that that had been a possibility—no, an eventuality—ever since he'd started this shit, but he'd never openly talked about it or acknowledged it before.

Though the Systems Alliance had rather stringent rules in place, it hadn't stopped others from doing what Percival was doing now. Those who had done so had all had to make that choice at some point or another. Whether it usually ended in tragedy, Percival did not know. Percival knew it was not a choice that could be avoided. Postponed maybe, but one that he and everyone else who done what he did before him would have to make eventually.

They both sat in silence for a while as either person mulled over what was going on inside their own heads.

"Captain?" Percival finally spoke.

"Yes?"

"That choice… it's something every marine will face, right? No way around it?"

The captain looked away, pensive and more than a bit sad. "In my experience? Yes… every marine that chooses to do what you did eventually _will_ have to make that choice between it and duty. There is no way around it, no matter how badly you may want that to be."

Percival squeezed his hands together. "Since my father died, all I've ever wanted was to be the good in the galaxy that he should have been. I joined the Systems Alliance to do that, and I know that when I did I swore an oath of duty – a duty not just to the Alliance but to the people that they swore to protect."

"Yes, you did," Captain Garen nodded.

His fingers were leaving angry red marks in the palms of his hand. For a moment he wished that he could go back to when he was sixteen again, in his bedroom talking with his father about high school and football and girls. He wished he wasn't in the briefing room of a Systems Alliance cruiser, in charge of a platoon, headed to a planet where he might possibly lose his life. He wished that he was just a kid again.

"Then when it's time to make for me to make that choice, I should choose to do my duty, right?

Silence again. Both men sat there in that silence for a little while longer, taking refuge in it before the coming storm that was tomorrow. The next sound that Percival heard was the sound of the captain getting up off his chair and walking away towards the door.

It opened with a hiss. The captain stopped on the threshold and looked back towards Percival.

"Honestly? I don't know son. I don't know…"

* * *

 _February 21_ _st_ _, 2201, 2224 hours — Aboard the SSV New York, in transit to the Kite's Nest, Gunthel System_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Ten and a half hours before the Battle of Bahak begins._

"Establish a goddamn landing zone while a legion of batarians try their best to kill me, all the while the transport pilots and the combat doctors get to sit up in space with their thumbs up their asses while we do all the dirty work, just fucking perfect," whined Corporal Duc Nguyen, or "Ducky". He braced his boots up on the bunk in front of him and leaned back on his chair. "I am over this shit."

Private 1st Class Jasmine Mendoza pushed Ducky's boots off the bed and huffed. "Well I don't know about you boys, but I for one am just about ready to end this war. I've got things to do and places to see."

"You still planning to get hitched to what's-his-name back on Eden Prime after the war, Jazz?" Ducky chuckled. He kicked off his boots and placed his socks back up on the bed. Jazz let it slide with a sigh. At least the corporal kept up with his hygiene.

"His name is Liam, and for your information we're setting the date sometime in late August and I expect _all_ of you to attend, so don't go off and die or something stupid like that," Jazz spat. She then pointed at a female corporal with a shaved head currently cleaning her M-7 Lancer on the bunk above her. "Especially you! You know how embarrassing it'll be if the maid of honor went and got herself offed by some slaver hyped-up on red sand?"

The corporal lying on the bunk above Jazz set her rifle aside and tilted her head over the edge of her bed. "And miss out on all those lovely bridesmaids of yours? Weddings are some damn potent aphrodisiacs, I wouldn't dream of it," chuckled Corporal Kara Johansson.

"You stay away from my bridesmaids," warned the private.

"Relax Jazz, I'm pretty sure Kara prefers them Systems Alliance. In fact, I think Liam's the one who should watch out," laughed Ducky.

Jazz hissed at the laughing Vietnamese marine and pushed his feet back off of her bunk. Above her Johansson chuckled deviously alongside her fellow corporal.

Percival had a small smile on his face as he watched the marines on his squad bicker and joke with one another. His father had told him that the bonds he had forged with the marines in his platoon were some of the strongest he'd ever made. Nothing like baptism by combat to really cement a friendship.

 _Thirty more minutes,_ Percival thought to himself.

"Still, I don't much like the idea of being forced to roll out the red carpet," grunted Private 2nd Class Charles Cormack. "How long do we have to hold the door for, Lieutenant?"

"Indeterminate," Percival replied. "It'll depend on how long it'll take for the 63rd to disable the cannons and for Octavian to punch his way through the slaver fleet, either way we still need to make sure those landing zones are clear before those birds can land, we're not getting through that cyclonic shield otherwise."

"I'm with Corms and Ducky on this one," Private 1st Class Laverne Kane pointed at his two friends. "The 63rd could take anywhere between ten minutes and a hundred to get those cannons down, while a batarian can shoot your ass off in two seconds. Why not just get those cannons down and then send in the fighters to bring down that shield instead of spending marine blood?"

"Yeah! Represent, brother!" cheered his fellow private, Malcolm Sterling. The heavy gunner held out a hand in an attempt to garner a high-five from his fellow heavy gunner, but a reproachful shake of the marine's head quickly stopped that train. Sterling coughed and moved his hand to the back of his neck. "Yeah, what's wrong with the fighters? Why are we spending marine blood on something the flyboys can accomplish without a scratch?" He asked.

"All of the fighters of the Ninth Fleet together wouldn't be able to breach that cyclonic barrier, not to mention we need them up in space covering our ships, but our heavy artillery can be modded to fire heavy disruptor shells," Percival explained.

"And we can't risk the batarians destroying our heavy artillery mid-transport. If we don't have enough guns then were not getting through the shield, and all of our efforts will have been for shit. We're clearing that landing zone the hard way, marines," replied James.

"Don't forget, we're here to rescue the slaves," Kara pointed out. She swung herself out of her bunk and landed lightly on her feet. "Innocent little kids, refugees, people who wanted nothing more than to rebuild their lives and homes after the Reaper War. Surely that's worth spilling a bit of blood over."

Sterling merely grunted and folded his arms over his chest. She was right, there was more than just the lives of these marines at stake. There always was.

Service Chief Francisco Ruiz from squad four raised a hand. "Lieutenant, what kind of heavy weapons or mech-support can we count on?"

Percival turned and listed them off on his fingers. "Aside from each squad's M-100 Grenade Launcher every single platoon will get two single-use M-560 Hydras. Those will go to Private Williamson from squad two and Corporal Chang from squad three. I suggest you all make sure those guys stay in one piece."

The rest of the marines laughed a bit and said a few choice words to the two chosen individuals. A few took it open themselves to promise retribution and wrath should the two marines somehow miss their targets with their precious heavy weapons.

"Single-use Hydras?" moaned Ducky. "So if they drop a third Atlas or a third spider-tank I guess we'll all just die then?"

Percival ignored his whiny corporal and continued on. The corporal was a recent transfer and this would be their first tour together, so he could only hope that all the bitching was just a coping mechanism and the man could perform in combat.

"Zulu Company will be equipped with M-110's, they'll be providing covering fire for the entire battalion, and will be staying behind to cover us as we take the facilities. Also, once we clear the landing zone and the planetary cannons are down, we've got elements from the 22nd Armored Division available for mechanized support, as well as the combat doctors."

"And how many combat doctors are we gonna get hitched with?" asked Gunnery Chief Adriano Dimitrios, commander of squad three.

"Six per platoon, so twenty-four per company," Percival replied. "They're all navy corpsman who did a six-month psych course or something, supposedly they'll be able to handle any and all medical needs that the slaves might have once we get to them. And they can fight."

"I hope they can fight _well_ , seeing as they're coming down to Bahak in first-class rather than economy like the rest of us…" muttered a private from squad four.

"They're combat-certified Verdanya, don't you worry. We just can't risk losing the lot of them taking the landing zones," James assured him.

"And what about us Gee-cee? Can we really risk losing this?" Sterling asked. He removed his t-shirt and gestured with his hands up and down his impressive physique. At 6'4 and nearly two-thirty pounds, Malcolm Sterling had taken to the standard System Alliance gene mods very, very well. Not only was the marine built, he was also fast, faster than many marines his size with the same gene mods, and almost as fast as Percival.

"Put your shirt back on," grunted Laverne.

"I don't think Sterls can get his head through that neckline," Cormack added.

The rest of the platoon jeered good-naturedly at the egotistical display, all of them being well-acclimated and used to Sterling's shameless self-promotion after the first ten times he had removed his shirt in a crowded setting. A few single-credit bills erupted from the hand of one of the female marines from squad three and fluttered to the ground at Sterling's feet. He grinned and gave them one last pose before putting his shirt back on.

"If I die tomorrow, cremate me, add my ashes to a fifth of whiskey and send it to my brothers, they'll know what to do."

"Dude, no," shuddered Cormack. The marine rubbed both of his arms and visibly cringed.

"You need to get professional help" said Kane.

" _Yes,_ " Kara emphatically agreed.

* * *

 _February 21_ _st_ _, 2201, 2306 hours — Aboard the SSV New York, in transit to the Kite's Nest, Gunthel System_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Ten hours before the Battle of Bahak begins._

Percival rounded the corner at nearly thirteen miles an hour, just barely avoiding a collision with a small maintenance tech who'd been crouched at a conduit junction fixing a leak. Had the large marine hit her there likely would have been an official friendly-fire incident pending an official investigation.

"Sorry!" Percival called out behind him without stopping. The small maintenance tech shook her fist and added a few choice words in complete disregard of the fact that Percival outranked her by several levels.

His arms pumped as they assisted in propelling his legs through the halls of the ship. For a marine his size Percival was surprisingly nimble, being able to duck, dip, dodge and weave through the scores of ship personnel going about their business, sometimes by a distance of several centimeters but more often than not by a distance of one. Many of the personnel he passed also had a few choice words for the marine.

After several dozen more meters and multiple near-misses the First Lieutenant finally reached the supply closet and tapped in the code that the chief maintenance officer had given him. It had cost Percival a month's supply of spaghetti rations and his dessert for the next two weeks but it was a small price to pay for what awaited him inside.

He fumbled the code the first time, his breath labored and his uniform sweaty. For a split-second his anxiety kicked in and he considered going back to make himself more presentable, but he was already late as it was and it wouldn't behoove him to be even more late. Percival managed to get the code right on the second try and with a hiss the doors to the supply closet slid open. He looked behind him to ensure that no one else was nearby, then slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

"You're late, First Lieutenant." a voice said. A figure slipped out from deeper within the closet. Like Percival she was clad in the uniform of a Systems Alliance marine and like him she had a shock of blond hair and a set of light brown eyes. She came up to about his chest and she currently had her fake best scowl plastered on her soft features. It was a terrible fake scowl – it didn't quite reach her eyes, and you could always see the truth in a person's eyes – but Percival thought that it was an adorable attempt nonetheless.

Percival ignored the fake scowl she had and let out a tiny smile. "My apologies, Second Lieutenant Guinevere Lockley."

"… And you're sweaty," that same voice said again. The scowl slipped a bit and that's when he saw his moment. Percival was a trained Systems Alliance marine. He'd been taught how to plan an ambush, how to defend a location, how to protect a VIP, how to storm a building, a ship, a street. He'd been taught how to kill someone from two-thousand meters away and how to kill someone from two centimeters away. Most importantly, he'd been taught when to seize an opportunity when an opportunity presented itself.


	32. Chapter 32 - Real Friends, Real Fights

**Chapter 32 – Real Friends, Real Fights**

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 0811 hours —Anhur, City of New Thebes— Special Facility LV-427_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Chief Science Officer Alice Anders. Codename: MORDRED – Project Transcendence)_

" _Miranda, this is huge. The DNA… it contains the key, I know it! With it, we can bring everyone back!"_

" _No."_

" _Miranda, pleas—,"_

" _No, we cannot risk it! Shepard's orders."_

 _Alice stared pleadingly into her superior's unflinching, icy, blue gaze, letting every last shred of desperation she could muster shine through. The key was in the DNA, Alice was so sure of it! She just needed time and resources and potentially she could bring back everyone the Reapers had taken from them. She could bring her back her husband… her kids… and everyone else that they had lost. Why couldn't Miranda see that? Why couldn't Jane see that?_

 _Alice couldn't give up that easily, not when they were on the precipice of the most monumental discovery in perhaps the history of the galaxy. Not when they had a way to bring everyone back. "Miranda, we've been given an opportunity – an opportunity to save everyone!" she pleaded desperately. "This lab is equipped with the most advanced security and containment systems in the galaxy! You wrote the safety protocols yourself! We can do this! We can bring them all back!"_

" _No, Alice. For the last time, we cannot risk it. Any attempt to stop its replication and destroy it has ended in failure, we can't even slow it down, and you want to accelerate its growth? We have no idea what this DNA is capable of doing and we have no way of stopping it if something goes wrong. It's simply too much of a risk, I'm sorry…."_

 _Miranda's face softened as tears began to form in Alice's eyes. The infamous ice-queen was not immune to sympathy. Despite all of her genetic mods and training, she was still human at heart. Like nearly every other survivor of the Reaper War, Alice had lost someone. Miranda had been lucky, Orianna had survived the war and aside from her comrades aboard the SSV Normandy, Miranda had not been very close to anyone else. Miranda knew that Alice missed her family desperately and that if she were given even the slightest, most improbable chance that she could bring them back, Alice would grab on with both hands and give it everything she had. She was a lot like Shepard in that respect, but this was something not even Shepard was willing to consider._

 _Alice brushed her tears away. Though Miranda's face was etched with concern but Alice could see in her eyes that Miranda would not be swayed. The blue in them had hardened, iced-over with resolution and finality. Alice knew that there was nothing she could say that would change the mind of her superior, and so Alice turned around and began to leave._

 _Miranda sighed and uncrossed her arms, agonizing over the pain that she had clearly caused her friend. "Alice, I'm sorry," Miranda said, moving to catch up to the grieving scientist to try and comfort her._

 _Alice ignored her and continued walking. It couldn't end just like this, it couldn't. There had to be some way to bring them all back._

" _Alice, wait!" Miranda called out. Alice could hear her footsteps as Miranda struggled to catch up to her._

 _A hand grabbed her shoulder and shook it, softly. Alice ignored it and continued walking. The key was in the DNA. If she could unlock its secrets, she could bring them all back._

" _Alice…. Alice!"_

 _The DNA… the Crucible… the technology Cerberus had developed… all the pieces were there, she knew it._

" _Alice, wake up!"_

"Alice!" repeated a soft, masculine voice from beside her.

Alice woke with a jolt, knocking over an empty coffee mug. She blinked a few times in confusion and then rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand. A small pool of drool lay drying on the datapad which she had used as a make-shift pillow. Alice let loose an earth-shaking yawn and stretched her arms up above her head, her back screaming in protest. It had been yet another late night.

Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Locke stood beside her, already in full armor. His right arm had a red stripe flanked by two thinner white lines running down the center of it – the mark of an N7. In his right hand he held a steaming mug of coffee which he offered to Alice. She accepted it and took a small sip, sighing in relief at the caffeine. His other hand hovered just a few inches from her shoulder, it being what he had woken her up with.

Alice set the coffee mug down on her desk and sighed once more. It had been nothing but late nights ever since they had started live tests, and it had mostly been nothing but nightmares ever since the events of the Hippocrates. Alice couldn't go to sleep without imagining the faces of all those people she had condemned to death. They not only haunted her dreams, but most of her waking moments. It was, however, an effective method of motivation. Alice poured every ounce of her efforts into ensuring that their sacrifice would not be in vain. Alice also knew that given the chance, she'd make the same decision to sacrifice them again in a heartbeat. Anything to see her family again.

Alice yawned once more. "Tom, what time is it?"

Locke brushed past her question. His icy-blue eyes shone with excitement "Alice, it worked…"

The tiredness immediately evaporated. A tremor ran through her body. "What?" she asked incredulously.

Locke was hardly the most expressive individual. The former N7 was almost always stoic, calm and composed, but Alice saw that he was shaking with excitement as well. "It worked! The subject's vitals are stabilized, we brought one back!" he grinned.

Alice beamed. It was working! The Cerberus tech was working and all the lives that they had ended aboard the Hippocrates hadn't been for nothing!

"That's fantastic!" she laughed. "Keep me updated on his – or her – status and alert me as soon as they've regained consciousness!"

"I will, but how much longer do you think we will need? Those creatures are spreading rapidly. I can't guarantee the safety of this facility for much longer, and Marcus reports that a small Blue Suns fleet has managed to rush past his picket lines and land troops. They've managed to seize the planetary defense cannons as well. Marcus had to pull his ships out of range because of that. He can't fight their ships or send reinforcements."

Alice sighed and rubbed her eyes. "We need as long as you can give me. There is nothing we can do until the subject is conscious – _if_ it regains consciousness. Without the Prometheus Data, we're essentially groping blindly along—praying that one of our experiments show some sort of breakthrough we can capitalize on."

"Well, we now have proof that your theory works. They can be brought back," mused Locke. "Maybe this is all we need. Maybe we can begin direct trials."

The Prometheus Data had contained decades of Systems Alliance research on the phenomenon on Earth. Alice was sure that the phenomenon on Thessia and Earth was connected or even created by the Originator DNA. It could have provided them with the next piece of the puzzle. It had contained vast amounts of research on how the Originator DNA adapted to—and transformed—different species, like the humans and the asari. That information had been vital to Project Transcendence, but it had been destroyed at the hands of Council Spectres – Spectre 04272182-Cloud, no less. Alice wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry at that cruel twist of fate. The gods had a vicious sense of humor. If only the Spectre knew his stake in it all.

Alice looked up at Locke, and felt a pang of sadness when she saw that the glimmer of hope in the former N7's eyes was no longer there. Like her, Locke had lost someone he desperately wanted back. Alice had caught him secretly staring at the photo of his wife he kept in his chestplate many times. Everyone who had believed in what Alice was trying to do had lost someone they desperately wanted back. The Reaper War had touched them all.

"I'm sorry Tom, we can't…. Without knowing how the Originator DNA does what it does, we wouldn't be bringing anything back," she said sadly.

Over the last two decades, Alice had been secretly contacting and recruiting those who had lost friends and families during the Reaper War and offering them a way to bring them back. Locke had been one of the first she had contacted. He had worked closely with her, Shepard and Miranda to secure and study the Reaper Cores, and it had been no secret that he had lost his family in the Invasion of London during the Reaper War. His best friend and fellow Systems Alliance officer Marcus Octavian had soon followed, as well as a select number of trusted soldiers and people of influence within the Systems Alliance.

They soon expanded to include members of other species and younger members of the Systems Alliance who could be swayed, primarily within Marcus' fleet. Some of the younger recruits had lost parents or older siblings to the Reapers. Others, such as the late Doctor Olivia Flanagan, had done so for scientific curiosity. It had only been during the events of the Hippocrates that Alice had realized that the former doctor had been certifiably insane. If she had known earlier, she would have never recruited her.

And there were others – others such as Morder Zakiah, a terminally-ill salarian desperate to discover the secrets of prolonging his life beyond its natural limit, and other such as Severus Tyrannus, a turian prodigy who longed to dedicate his skills and talents for a cause truly worth fighting for. All of them were talented, and all of them had contributed in different ways to the realization of Alice's dream of bringing back the ones they had lost. Above all, all of them could keep a secret. It had been why they'd managed to stay hidden for so long.

"I know, Alice… I'm sorry, it's just that it _finally_ feels like we've actually made _some_ progress…," sighed Locke. The N7 rubbed his jaw – another little quirk of his that Alice had seen him do hundreds of time – and sighed again. "All those lives lost… and this is the first time I've felt like we've actually managed to accomplish something."

Alice stood up and placed her hand on his arm, right over that bright, red stripe. "I'm doing my best, Tom. You're doing your best, too. Remember that," Alice said gently.

Locke nodded morosely and looked away, his eyes sad and thoughtful. They had both cause a lot of pain in the universe, all for largely selfish reasons. No one except Alice Anders really cared if Alice Anders ever held her husband and her two children in her arms ever again. No one except Thomas Locke really cared if Thomas Locke could have just one more dance with his wife. Anyone from the outside looking-in would likely see their actions as heinous… horrific… on par with what the Reapers had done. It didn't matter why Alice or Thomas had done what they had done, all anyone would care about would be the people they hurt along the way.

After two decades of secret research, Alice had finally found a way to accelerate the growth of the Originator DNA using an artificially-modified gene. She had contacted Tom and the others, and together they had made plans to test the DNA.

The Hippocrates had been the perfect test site. It was isolated, several of Alice's top-ranking contacts served on the ship, and it was home to the Systems Alliance Research and Development Division, the branch responsible for studying the phenomenon and for creating the Prometheus Data. It would be the perfect place to observe the effects of the Originator DNA on live subjects. She created a Reaper CPU containing Originator DNA that had the Accelerator gene added to it. Olivia had inserted it into the Reaper Core that the Alliance had been trying to activate at the time in an attempt to further study the phenomenon, and when they finally turned it on, all hell broke loose.

Alice, Tom and the rest of the members of Project Transcendence had expected something to happen. They all knew that a biohazard situation was one of the possibilities. They had planned for months and months. Plans were made to disable the ship's engines so that it wouldn't be able to move, and to disable its communications so that the Hippocrates couldn't call for help and risk spreading whatever disease or virus or biohazard they had created by activating the Originator DNA using the Reaper Core. Their saboteurs were well-trained, special armor and weapons were hidden aboard the ship, and every possible contingency was planned for. They knew how the Reapers created their troops during the war. They had anticipated something like that.

But the brutality, terror, and violence of what actually happened was beyond anything that they could have prepared for. Alice had watched in sheer horror as the creatures created by the Originator DNA and the Core began tearing into the crew, spawning more of them that continued the cycle of death and rebirth. She had watched as the creatures would combine the bodies of several slain crewmembers to create even larger, more horrendous monstrosities. Several asari began to also exhibit strange, schizophrenic and psychotic behavior, speaking of hearing "whispers". It was like witnessing a horror holo-vid unfold before her very eyes.

Her saboteurs had panicked and upon seeing the terrifying results of what she had done Alice had been just about ready to end Project Transcendence right then and there. It was only through the quick and decisive actions of Tom, Severus, and Morder that they managed to keep the mission intact and convince Alice to proceed with the Project. The former N7 Systems Alliance Lieutenant-Commander had rallied the surviving saboteurs, retrieved the Prometheus Data, and then worked to evacuate as many of his surviving project members as he could in the face of such unexpected, terrifying events. Alice deeply admired the man and his ability to make the best of a terrible situation. She supposed it came with the territory of being an N7.

"I know you're doing your best, Alice, we both are," Locke said. "I just wish that we had more to show for all the blood we've spent. Millions more are going to die, Alice, and here we are gambling all those lives on the off-chance that we can somehow bring everyone back, not even a guarantee."

Alice placed her hands on Locke's chestplate, one hand over the spot where the N7 kept the picture of his wife. "It's more than a chance, Tom! The Cerberus tech works, and even if it doesn't work this time around, we can eventually find a way to make it work. It's still progress!" Alice urged. "And we are gambling millions of lives for _billions,_ maybe even _trillions!_ We wouldn't just be able to bring back everyone we lost, but _everyone the Reapers had ever harvested!_ Every single last one of their victims, Tom! Surely that is worth all of this pain and suffering!"

Phase two had been even more horrific. It had involved the creation of another Reaper CPU containing Originator DNA and the Acceleration gene, except this time it would be placed into a Reaper Core which the Reapers had also made from the harvested Originator species and which contained Originator DNA. It would be activated, this time on a densely-populated planet. The Reaper Core back on the Hippocrates did not have the DNA. They absolutely needed to see its combined effects, and on a larger sample-size.

With a heavy heart, Marcus and Tom had chosen Anhur, knowing that in doing so they were condemning millions of people to death. Not only was it a densely-populated planet, it was deep in the Terminus Systems and had a full array of planetary defense cannons that they could hijack and use in case the Council decided to send a fleet. Marcus also made the call to officially abandon the Systems Alliance, taking those soldiers under his command loyal to him and to their cause, which was almost the entirety of the Ninth Fleet. Despite the efforts of the saboteurs, there had been survivors of the Hippocrates – the Spectres being chief among them— and both Marcus and Tom knew that it had been only a matter of time before the Council and the Systems Alliance discovered their plans and those involved.

With Council intervention imminent, they had decided not only that secrecy was no longer an option but that the project had to be accelerated as well. Alice had spent the last week testing their reverse-engineered Cerberus tech. After many sleepless nights, they had finally had a breakthrough with the latest subject. If it managed to regain consciousness, then it would be huge leap forward for the Project. It would make their dreams that much closer to becoming reality, and Alice could finally feel as if all the pain that they had caused might actually be worth it. It was a race against time now. They had to figure out a viable way to bring everyone back before the Council could stop them.

Locke was about to say something when an armored turian suddenly burst into the room. He had red eyes and light-blue markings over a pale, ghostly carapace. His name was Severus Tyrannus, and him and his turian commandos were perhaps the most elite fighting force the Project had.

"Locke, one of the subjects escaped last night," the turian reported.

Severus ripped a datapad from his belt and shoved it in Locke's face. Time-stamped in the late hours of last night, it was a clip from one of the holding cells. It showed one of the Project's guards – the lone security guard responsible for the unchanged subjects – coughing violently before exiting the room. Seconds later the subject had managed to bypass the locks on the cell and escape.

"Damn it!" Locke cursed. "What happened, Sev?"

"Bad luck," Severus replied. "The guard on duty had some sort of allergic reaction and went to medical. The subject must have also had some familiarity with the security systems."

Alice looked at both of her fellow project members in slight confusion. "Surely this isn't a big deal, Tom. Those creatures are everywhere out there, he can't have made it far."

Locke shook his head. "We can't take that chance, Alice. If he was resourceful enough to escape, he might be resourceful enough to make his way to those looking to stop us."

"Yes, we can't take that chance," Severus agreed. "I already sent my second-in-command with a team to hunt him down and bring him back – or failing that, silence him."

"Good," Locke nodded approvingly. "Darken is one of our best. If anyone can get it done it's him."

"He is perhaps the best commando we have, there is no one else I trust more," agreed Severus. Darken Krystos was more than the young turian prodigy's fellow commando and second-in-command. He had been both his mentor and his rock ever since he and the other commandos had followed the younger turian right out of the Hierarchy. When Severus' father – patriarch of one of Palaven's premier military dynasty – had disowned his youngest son for abandoning the Hierarchy, Darken had stepped in the fill the role of father as well as friend to the young prodigy.

The N7 quietly cursed. He moved away from his two friends and braced an arm up against the wall. His hand went up to gently rub the place on his armor where he kept the picture of his wife. Darken was formidable, maybe the best fighter they had aside from he and Severus. Locke had seen him in battle. The older turian was wily, ruthless and fought with a brutality you wouldn't have expected from the militaristic race.

Severus tilted his head in confusion at Locke's inaction. The entire time Severus had known him, the N7 had been nothing but a whirlwind of decisive action. Very few things had ever given him pause and Severus feared that perhaps Locke had reacted this way because Severus had not done enough. "Do you want me to send out a second team?" the turian asked.

Locke stood quietly for a few moments, starring glassy-eyed at the wall in front of him.

"No, we need your turians here," he finally grunted. "But have Darken contact me, I need to talk to him."

Severus nodded.

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 1244 hours —Hammerhead Shuttle B12—En-Route to the City of Alexandra_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

" _School is going alright, but Ms. Mason won't let me play gravball anymore,"_ John pouted.

I wrinkled my eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion and starred quizzically. "Why not?"

The little boy on my omni-tool sighed and looked away in embarrassment. " _Riley was throwing it at the other kids heads even though Ms. Mason told us it was against the rules. I told him to stop, but he hit Ashley and Ashley started crying, so I threw it at his head and then he started crying."_

I bit back a small smile and tried my best to look disproving. I didn't think I was very adept at it, but hopefully it would be enough to fool a six-year old child.

"So after Riley broke the rules, you broke the rules," I said. "That's two rule-breakers."

John looked confused for a moment, then began counting on his fingers. " _Two? Yes, two!"_ he agreed.

I gave a mock-sigh and tried to look disappointed. "You didn't like it when Riley broke the rules, right? Those rules are supposed to keep everyone safe, and yet you broke the rules as well."

"— _But he broke them first, and he wouldn't stop when I told him to stop,"_ the young child replied, not understanding.

"It doesn't matter," I replied. "Two wrongs don't make a right, John. No one ever made the world a better place by stooping down to another person's level. I want you to try your best with that, okay? Next time, find another way – a better way."

The small, blond-haired child looked down despondently and for a second I was afraid that I had gone too far. I could feel my heart break slightly at the sight of his tiny eyebrows knitting together, and my heart had been through a lot. I had seen crazed, red-sanded Vorcha chew at the bones of several former owners of tiny eyebrows.

An armored elbow dug violently into my ribs and a pair of armored hands yanked my wrist and my omni-tool violently away from my body.

"Hello—Hi—Oh, you're actually adorable! Hello, my name is Elektra—don't call me Auntie—and I just wanted to say that what my friend said is a load of bull. You don't become like Riley, you're different from Riley, because you never would have thrown that gravball at your friend Ashley, right?" my fellow Spectre gushed.

" _You're funny,"_ giggled John. " _Hello Elektra, nice to meet you. My name is John."_

I made to pull my arm away but Elektra just stared at me violently and mouthed a few words that I couldn't make out. I merely sighed and resigned myself to the force of nature that was Elektra.

"Hello John, nice to meet you too. Now I don't know what my friend here told you, but you should know he's a stuffy old fart and a bit of a hypocrite. If he believed even an ounce of what he said he wouldn't be a Spectre," she whispered conspiratorially to him.

"Is it so wrong to aim to be something more?" I asked. She blew a raspberry at me and John laughed again.

" _Are you a Spectre too, Elektra?"_

Elektra beamed then adjusted my omni-tool so John could see the symbol emblazoned on the upper left of her chestplate. Right next to a few crudely-carved hearts was a small, silver oval with six metal arms in a crude wedge-formation pointed down towards its center, against the backdrop of a larger silver ring. I personally found it stupid to advertise something like that so blatantly, especially since our work was 90% espionage, but Elektra loved the attention.

The young boy's eyes grew wide with admiration. _"Wow, that's so cool! I didn't even know there were any female human Spectres! Are you on a mission with Cloud?"_

"Yes, yes I am! I'm here to keep him safe," she replied.

" _Good! He promised me he'd take me to see the new Blasto film when he got back. Make sure he keeps his promise!"_ John urged.

"I most definitely will! Would you like for me to come as well?" Elektra asked.

" _Yes! That would be awesome! I bet you can tell me so many stories – Cloud doesn't tell me any stories."_

I glared furiously at her. My teammate stuck out her tongue at me, which prompted another barrage of laughter from John.

A wave caught my attention. I twisted my head and saw Rayla T'lana hold up five fingers. We would be touching down in Alexandra in five minutes.

Rayla was a veteran asari commando and one of the specialists we had brought aboard the Excalibur. She was the older sister of Rentea T'lana, one of the survivors from the Hippocrates Incident and the current chief medical officer aboard our ship. Rayla had joined us to keep a close eye on her younger sister. Personally, I welcomed the addition of another biotic, especially one that had almost a century of experience and was more proficient than both Elektra and I combined. The asari commando had an Avenger assault rifle and an M-92 Mantis clipped to her armor.

Elektra let go of my arm. I placed myself back in the omni-tool's video frame and smiled at the young child, quietly marveling at how much he looked like his late mother.

"Hey John, listen, I've got to go now, alright?"

" _Okay,"_ John nodded sadly. " _Are you going to be fighting?"_

"Yeah," I nodded. "Sometimes that _is_ what it takes. I wish it weren't the case but it is."

" _Are you going to save everyone?"_

I felt a slight pang in my heart. Would I?

"I'm going to do my best," I promised him. The incident on the Hippocrates had created orphans of too many kids, and Anhur promised to do the same except on a larger scale. I knew that my best would not be enough to save everyone, but maybe John wouldn't be old enough to know that.

Elektra pushed her head back into the frame, bumping into my chin and causing me to grunt in pain. "Don't worry, he's got me," she grinned. "There's nothing the two of us can't do together."

John smiled and nodded. " _There is nothing you guys can't do,"_ he echoed. " _Nice to meet you, Elektra. Be safe, Cloud."_

"Nice to meet you too, John, and please, call me Ellie."

"Be good, don't give your grandparents a hard time," I finished.

John nodded and I shut off the omni-tool. Elektra moved back into her own seat and jerked her head at my omni-tool. "Is that her kid?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's Sarah's son," I replied. Her name caught in my throat a bit. It had been a while since I had said it out loud.

Elektra balled her hand into a fist and slugged me on the shoulder. "It's not your fault she died."

"Usually I'm not one to agree with the harpy, but this time she's right," Cade said. The turian Spectre uncrossed his arms and propped his elbows on his knees. His beloved Black Widow stood stock-first between his legs, the barrel in the crook of his armored shoulder. "It's not your fault she died."

 _But it was._ I thought. I didn't reply. I merely nodded and checked my Snakebite.

The shuttle shook as we hit a patch of turbulence. The large, armored Krogan sitting a few seats away from me grunted and used one massive hand to brace himself against the ceiling. Urdnot Garm was another of the specialists we had brought onboard. Like Rayla, he had signed on to protect someone he cared about – our chief engineer and yet another survivor of the Hippocrates Incident, Camilla, who turned out to be his adopted daughter. The grizzled-old krogan was wily, cunning, and strong as hell—a fact that I had learned the hard way when he had beaten my ass in a bar the first time I met him, having mistook me for Cade.

He wore the same trademark bulky red armor that all the older members of clan Urdnot nowadays, but its heavily-pitted and scarred surface betrayed his fighting experience. A veteran of the first Reaper War and nearly seven-hundred years old, Urdnot Garm was a living legend. His Geth Spitfire lay on the deck of the shuttle in front of his seat and he had one massive booted foot pinning it in place. I glanced over at him, and his one, good eye swiveled to meet my gaze while the other hung dead and white in its socket. The ancient Krogan nodded wordlessly. I think he had a soft spot for me.

Seated beside him and looking like an absolute child beside the massive Krogan was corporal Galen Verus. The young turian was barely eighteen when the Hippocrates Incident started. He had been a fresh recruit serving under the late Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus and had proved himself repeatedly during the horrific nightmare that happened on board that ill-fated ship. The scales on his dark-gray carapace were not yet those of a fully-developed turian but they looked larger and thicker than they had a few short weeks ago. His relatively-unscarred suit of smoky-gray armor was an indication that he had obviously seen much less fighting than the others aboard the shuttle, but both Cade and I had witnessed the young turian in action aboard the Hippocrates. He was quick and fast, good in a fight and had potential. Galen turned to Cade and starred at the older turian with worry in his light-green eyes. The young turian with the red clan markings was likely the most nervous of the bunch.

A screen built into the side of the shuttle suddenly lit up, displaying the angry, burned face of Captain Revak Ghar'aran, batarian leader of the Blue Suns battalion that the Council had hired to accompany us to Anhur. I could hear screaming, gunfire, and snarling behind him. They must already be engaged with the creatures.

We had all been uneasy with working with the former slaver and his younger brother, Malan – Percival especially. The two had participated in the Battle of Bahak during the final battle of the Slave Wars alongside Percival, and it was there that the Butchers of Bahak had earned their monikers. We were professionals though, and Percival, Cade and everyone else attached to the mission were willing to temporarily overlook the serpents we had taken into our beds in light of the greater galactic threat posed by Mordred, Locke and the rest of those trying to bring about transcendence, and for the greater good of our mission.

Besides, that was a score we could always settle later. Until then we needed the Ghar'aran brothers, their Blue Suns mercenaries, and their fleet. Anhur was a hub planet deep in the Terminus Systems, and we couldn't send a Council fleet without risking the wrath of more than a dozen Terminus warlords.

I stood up and made my way over to the display so that Ghar'aran could see me. "Captain, what can I do for you," I said cordially.

" _Drak'Takai, Lieutenant Navarrian and one of my companies has landed on the western edge of the Spaceport, but the creatures have a strong presence there! They need assistance!"_ the batarian commander grunted.

I grunted back. Drak'Takai, or death dealer in the batarian tongue, was not the most flattering of nicknames.

I pulled up a schematic of the spaceport and the surrounding environment and highlighted two points nearby, making note of the location of the symbols that marked the position of Revak's Blue Suns. We needed the spaceport. It was the perfect location to house a center of operations and from which to begin civilian evacuations directly up into the Blue Sun's fleet.

"There," I said. "I'll post a few sharpshooters here and send some specialist support here to directly aid your lieutenant and his men. Hang tight."

Revak turned to look somewhere off-camera before pressing a massive, modded Revenant to his shoulder and firing a long burst. He turned back and nodded. " _My men are pushing on the other two fronts and will be at the spaceport in half a unit, get my company there in one piece,"_ the batarian growled.

I nodded back, then cut the link. "Chan!" I called out. I sent a copy of the plans to rest of the team, then to the Lieutenant flying the shuttle. "Drop us off there!"

"Roger that, Spectre!" the pilot replied.

I moved to the back of the shuttle towards the door and grabbed a handhold. Cade and Elektra both silently moved up beside me. I was going to intend for it to just be Cade and I, but it wouldn't hurt to have a spotter. Cade stood silently and impassively at the bulkhead, mentally preparing himself to fight those creatures once more. Elektra looked much more unnerved. It would be her first time fighting these things.

I looked behind me. Garm, Rayla and Galen all looked back and nodded. Chan would take them directly to Lieutenant Navarrian and the Blue Suns on the western front.

I slammed a palm onto the button controlling the doors to the shuttle and watched as they slid open to reveal a city under attack. Alexandra was a large city just a short distance from the capital of Anhur – New Thebes. It had the architecture typical for a highly-developed colony world out in the Terminus Systems – tall buildings with massive, free-hanging pathways between them and huge open balconies, similar to Ilium. I could see smoke rising from a hundred different locations and hear dozens of different voices screaming for help. Gunfire echoed across the city as the local police did their best to stem the growing tide of abominations that threatened to kill them all.

The spaceport in contrast to the rest of the city was ugly, triangle-sized, squat, but had tall, thick walls surrounding the perimeter used to separate the runways from the spaceport itself, thus making it highly-defendable. Lieutenant Chan brought the shuttle down to bear on-top of the roof of a medium-sized building on the west-side of the spacesport, where we could have a clear line-of-sight over the entire area. I could see small, advancing figures in blue armor on the north and south sides of the spaceport, interspersed with some black-armored figures. Those would be the other two companies and Murgen's Jaegers. They were too far away for me to make out which squad was where. I could also see several squads armored in light-green combat suits. They had to be part of Anhur's military.

On the western side were a large number of other blue-armored figures, but unlike their compatriots these were currently holding their position in a series of craters several hundred meters from the spaceport. Aside from the craters the land between them and the spaceport was littered with the burned and broken wrecks of dozens of spacecraft. Someone had likely done a massive strafing run before dropping off the Blue Suns.

Cade, Elektra and I jumped out of the shuttle and onto the roof. Our respective sniper rifles were already in our hands as we made a beeline for the edge of the building. Lieutenant Chan had already moved his shuttle towards the trapped mercenaries, to both drop off our specialists and to take on wounded.

I was the first one to the edge, sliding down onto my belly with my Snakebite up and ready. Cade hit the edge beside me not a split-second after, Meera poised to strike. Elektra had a pair of binoculars in her hands and was on my right, sighting down the field.

"Want to have a little kill-count contest?" Cade asked. The turian adjusted a few knobs and placed a few spare heatsinks down beside him.

I already had my eye pressed to my scope and was currently observing the situation. About 80% of the turian lieutenant's men were still alive. I couldn't help but notice that some of the creatures attacking them had Blue Suns armor on.

"Do you think this is some kind of game? No. Elektra and the Lieutenant will call out targets. Save your damn ammo," I grunted.

"That's no fun," my friend replied.

I ignored him and patched a line through to Lieutenant Navarrian. Despite it being their first time encountering the horrific creatures, they were acquitting themselves quite well.

"Lieutenant!" I called into my mic. "We're about six-hundred meters to your west, perched on-top of a building at coordinates zero-six-two-alpha, ready to provide long-range support."

" _Spectre?"_ came the flanged reply. " _Thank god! A few of the big ones came out of nowhere and changed one of my squads. We're having a hard time punching through!"_

"Roger that," I replied. "Mark your targets and be prepared to push."

My female compatriot suddenly shifted beside me and a red arrow came up on my HUD.

"There, I think those are what's got the Lieutenant pinned down. Tagged them for you," Elektra reported.

Cade and I both shifted our scopes. We saw the familiar, hulking forms of three massive Changers. A fourth lay in pieces some distance back, a testament to the efforts of the Blue Suns. My heart tightened at seeing them once more.

Changers were massive, hulking, half-metal behemoths standing between eight to twelve feet tall depending on the species they were made from. Thick, armored plates of various shapes and sizes encased their bodies from head-to-toe, thickest on its torso and less-so around the creatures' head, though you could see in some of the gaps between the plates the sickly-colored flesh of who the original victim had been, embedded with tiny, thin cables that bled blue fluid. The thick plates made them almost impervious to small-arms fire in those areas.

One arm was more thickly-armored and larger than the other, and all along that arm from shoulder to hand writhed a mass of thick cables the size of a man's wrist. We had seen what would happen if those cables found their way onto a victim. The other arm was smaller but ended in massive, metal talons several feet long that either extended from their fingers or from their forearms – a characteristic shared by nearly every single one of these creatures. Once again my mind flew back to the Hippocrates. I remembered claws exactly like those scything towards a brave scientist with golden hair and tears in her eyes.

Their legs were as thick as tree trunks and razor-sharp metal spikes protruded haphazardly from their backs like spines. Like their smaller Corpser brethren they had metal sockets where their eyes used to be and which shone with an eerie, blue light. Unlike their smaller brethren, all of whom had a massive, elongated, gaping maw that emitted red light and was filled with razor-sharp metal teeth interspersed with the teeth of their original victims, Changers had a large, metal plate covering their mouths. Unlike Corpsers who snarled and screamed like something right out of your worst nightmares, Changers were deathly-quiet. The worst part was you could see identifiable features of who the original victims were – bits of their armor or clothing hung from their massive frames, and their faces retained much of their identifiable features. Changers were primarily made from humans and krogan.

"Oh my god… were those things once human?" Elektra shuddered. We watched as a bunch of Corpsers swarmed around the Changers like a pack of angry wasps. Corpsers lacked the size, the sheer number of armored plates, and the cables on their arms that Changers possessed, but they made up for it in speed, sheer numbers, and a terrifying, tooth-ridden maw. They also sometimes carried around packs of Crawlers in their bloated stomachs – small, mechanical spider-looking creatures that forced themselves into their victims and changed them to create more Corpsers.

I banished any thoughts of Sarah to the back of my mind and filled that void with cold fury instead. "Cade, focus fire from left-to-right!" I barked.

I brought my Snakebite to bear on the left-most Changer and fired my first shot on Anhur. The heavy-calibre bullet slammed into the neck of the Changer – a former human – right into a gap between armor plates.

Cade fired three times at the spot that I had hit. His Black Widow could fire three times before the heat-sink overheated. My Snakebite could only fire once, but had a much larger caliber.

I fired once more, and my round severed the head off the massive creature. It folded at the knees and came down with an earth-shaking crash.

The other Changers slowly turned around and stared in our direction. I watched, unnerved. We were more than half a kilometer away, had they somehow spotted us?

My questions were answered when the snaking cables on their arms suddenly all flew up and pointed in our direction. Several Corpsers that had been charging towards the surviving Blue Suns suddenly stopped and started sprinting in our direction.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I froze. The Changers were directing the Corpsers. They had never done that before.

"Since when did they learn to do that?" complained Cade. The turian looked up from the scope of his Black Widow and stared incredulously at the creatures, his mandibles slack with surprise.

"Can the big ones not control the small ones?" asked Elektra.

"No, not that I remember!" hissed Cade. He snapped off a shot that drilled through the heads of one of the charging Corpsers, killing it. A loud, krogan roar could be heard in the distance. I watched as a hail of plasma-fire rained down on the Corpsers. Their smoking corpses went down and rough, throaty laughter could be heard even from as far away as we were. A mantis round crashed into the head of another Changer, followed by a few rounds from an M-96 Mattock.

I ignored my friend and instead copied the footage I had just seen into a file on my omni-tool and sent it back to the Excalibur. I quickly opened up a link to the ships' science department.

"Jaelen!" I grunted into my comm. set. "Got something you might want to see!"

The salarian scientist responded almost immediately, his voice tinged with panic. " _I'm watching it now. This is not good, Spectre!"_

"What's it mean?" I asked. Jaelen Veers had been a salarian biology researcher aboard the Hippocrates. He had been instrumental in our discovery of the aggressor DNA found in the creatures and had hypothesized that it originated from the Reaper Cores and was responsible for the phenomenon on Earth and Thessia. He was currently our leading expert on the DNA, these creatures and the phenomenon.

" _Back on the Hippocrates, when I examined the samples taken from the creatures we saw the inert Reaper DNA and the DNA of whatever species the Reapers had used to make their cores!"_ the salarian said with panic. " _The DNA was replicating, active!"_

"What does it mean, Jaelen!" I repeated. I suspect I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it confirmed by someone light-years smarter than I was.

" _The creatures, I think the DNA's growth has progressed significantly—grown stronger, more alive, so to speak. The creatures may be evolving,"_ the scientist whispered.

Cade shuddered and missed his next shot. I sighed and screwed my eyes shut for second. If that were true, then our mission had a soft time-limit. If they became smarter, _if they achieved sentience,_ then the galaxy was doomed.

"Roger that, I'll radio you when I have more information," I replied.

" _Copy that. Good luck, Spectre."_

I didn't reply and instead returned my attention to the battlefield. Together Cade and I brought down another Changer while Garm, Galen and Rayna had torn the last one apart with a combination of biotics, precise rifle-fire, and a hail of plasma from the Krogan's Geth Spitfire. That left the Blue Suns capable to advance towards the spaceport.

The Lieutenant and Elektra both kept calling out targets for Cade and I while the three specialists provided direct support to the Blue Suns. Galen was a blur of gray, weaving between Corpsers and leaving behind a trail of broken bodies. Rayla preferred to fight from range, bringing targets down with precise bursts from her Avenger or bursts of biotic power. I kicked myself for not having her with us, since she too had a sniper rifle, but the team choices had been a spur-of-the-moment decision and it looked like her biotics were really helping out the mercs. Garm merely directed his Spitfire towards any group of enemies that came into his field of vision and held the trigger down until they were nothing but steaming paste. We did our jobs well, taking the pressure off of the mercenaries and allowing them to advance. The Blue Suns were nearly at the spaceport and were starting to move out of range of our fire support.

" _Thanks for the assist, Spectres, but you should get your asses over here before you're cut off!"_ the Lieutenant said.

I tore my eyes off from my scope and took in a wider view of the battlefield. Dozens of Corpsers and more than a few changers were headed towards Cade, Elektra and I. If we didn't move soon, we would indeed be cut-off.

"Should we radio for the shuttle?" Cade asked.

I looked around, searching for inspiration. By the time Chan could circle back, it might already be too late.

A slim hand grabbed my bicep and tugged. Elektra depolarized her faceplate and looked at me with a big grin. She moved her other arm over the edge of the building and pointed straight down.

My eyes followed her finger and widened when I caught a glimpse of what she had been pointing at. That was suicidal. It had been years since I'd been on one and their exposed nature offered zero protection against the scything claws of the creatures.

Cade looked at me quizzically, then clipped Meera onto his back and used both arms to pull the upper half of his body out over the edge to look down at what Elektra had pointed at. "You have _got_ to be kidding me you harpy, this isn't a spirits-damned holo-film!" he snarled.

Elektra didn't reply. Instead she let go of my arm and rolled right off the edge of the building. I didn't miss a beat. I quickly clipped my Snakebite to my armor and grabbed Cade's collar armor.

"Wait! No, wait!" Cade pleaded.

I smiled beneath my visor and rolled off the building, my momentum dragging Cade along with me. Together we fell for about nine stories before I activated my biotics to slow my descent while Cade used his booster jets to do the same. We came crashing down in a plume of dust and rock. Immediately I heard snarling as several Corpsers in the vicinity took note of our sudden appearance.

A loud revving noise cut through the vicious snarling. Elektra was about twenty feet away astride a black Fenrir X52 sport motorcycle. A line of bikes lay parked ahead of her, most of them designed for turian and batarian use.

Her faceplate was depolarized and I could see a giant smirk beneath her visor. I couldn't help but grin as well. It had been a while since I had gotten a chance to ride a motorcycle.

"Ready to re-live the good old days?" she asked.

I didn't reply, but I did depolarize my faceplate so she could see my grin. I dashed over to the line of bikes and immediately hopped on to an over-sized black Fenrir X54 sport model which looked like it had been built for a batarian twice my size. I immediately hacked into it using my Spectre codes and revved it. It came to life with an intimidating roar.

Cade slid onto the first turian bike he saw, an older dark-blue Cipritine Ursus, modelled after the old Earth Daytona motorcycles. All three bikes had identical, unidentifiable logos engraved on the side. They were likely the coat-of-arms for some local biker gang that owned these bikes. Such gangs were the only ones who really rode motorcycles nowadays, and Elektra and I had stolen from bikes from them dozens of times when we were younger.

For a moment my mind flashed back to the Hippocrates, when the outbreak had first started. Sarah had asked me what I had been before I had become a Spectre. I, in my typical fashion, had given her a half-truth. She had thought I had been some Systems Alliance black-ops hotshot. I had told her I had been a simple delivery boy. I hadn't lied, but a part of me regretted that I never got the chance to tell her my whole story.

I immediately sped off, Elektra and Cade close behind me. Elektra was laughing over the comms while Cade remained uncharacteristically silent – likely using every last ounce of his concentration on not-crashing. Unlike us, he wasn't at home on a bike. We all received some training as Spectres, but given the lack of popularity of motorcycles in most core Council worlds, we rarely encountered them in our missions.

We weaved by any Corpsers we saw, ignoring them in favor of reaching the spaceport as quickly as possible. I couldn't help but notice that this city had not yet been completely overrun. Everywhere I looked, Alexandrian citizens and law enforcement worked in tandem to take down those monsters. Barricades were erected and buildings were fortified. I supposed that the creatures were more adept at killing and infecting in the close confinement of a spaceship.

My comm came to life and the voice of my friend came online. I was relieved to hear his voice, since I hadn't heard it ever since I'd jumped from the Excalibur.

" _Cloud, where the hell are you guys? We've almost cleared the spaceport,"_ Percival asked. I could hear the sound of gunfire and shouted orders in the background, and thankfully it outweighed the snarling that the creatures made.

"We're west and en-route to the Spaceport, maybe a couple minutes out!" I reported. I dodged another pair of Corpsers but a larger group had amassed further ahead, blocking our way. Elektra peppered them with a volley from her N7 Hurricane, but missed the majority of her shots. I grunted in annoyance and threw a singularity towards the group. It had been hard to do from astride a fast-moving bike but I had somehow managed to lob the swirling-blue mass directly in the center of the group.

The Corpsers were immediately lifted off their feet. A blue arc grenade came flying out of the corner of my eye and into my singularity. It detonated, reacting with the swirling biotic mass to create an explosion that destroyed the creatures.

We drove through the cloud of static, left-over biotics, metal plates and flesh. " _Hurry! There's dozens of those things out there, and we're about to issue an order over the city-wide comms for all survivors to head to the spaceport! Once the exodus happens, those creatures are going to start heading our way!"_ Percival warned us.

I was itching to pull out my Predator and start firing at some Corpsers, but I knew that at best it would be a waste of ammo. "Duly noted, Perc. Keep the door open for us."

" _Assuming I don't break my neck before I get there. I am not having fun,"_ Cade complained. The turian Spectre had some really close calls while avoiding the creatures, not being nearly as adept as Elektra and I at swerving around him.

"He's doing fine," I assured Percival. Another half-truth.

We had left the city proper and were now in the open land between the city and the spaceport, rapidly approaching our de facto stronghold. Up ahead, we could see defenders on the upper levels of the spaceport shooting at Corpsers below, while a few sharpshooters were stationed higher up to pick at packs of Corpsers that roamed in the open in an attempt to clear the way for the soon-to-be-approaching exodus of citizens.

However, the western gates were closed. A large crowd of Corpsers were scratching and howling at the door, and I could see a pair of massive Changers leading them. The hulking behemoths pounded silently at the metal. A few Blue Suns and local Anhur defense personnel fired down on the crowd, but they weren't having much luck thinning them out.

" _God… they're even more horrible up close… How are we going to get through them all?"_ Elektra asked.

" _How about you biotic charge right on in there, let them know that it's an exclusive party,"_ Cade hissed.

" _How about I shoot out your tires and use you as a distraction?"_ the female Spectre angrily replied. Elektra hadn't blinked twice at fighting a platoon of former Systems Alliance marines, but these monsters had shaken her unlike anything I'd ever seen.

We were maybe two-hundred meters away now and closing fast. I wracked my brain for a plan. We would have to clear them all out before we could get in, or else risk letting them inside where we would have to fight them in a more close-quarters environment. Maybe I could use my biotics, but it would take several singularity and warp combos to clear them all, which I wasn't sure I could do without burning myself out.

" _I guess it'll be Cade to the rescue,"_ my friend sighed, almost like he could read my mind.

About fifty meters away from the group, several of the Corpsers had started to notice us and had turned around in anticipation of our arrival. One of the Changers turned as well. The metal tubes on his arm shot up and pointed at us. The rest of the Corpsers turned and worryingly began to form ranks rather than charge us en masse.

Whispers started up in my head, startling me and sending shivers down my spine. The last time I had heard them it had been on the Hippocrates, whenever I had been in close proximity to the Chimera. When it had gotten close, the whispers had been so bad that they had caused me actual, debilitating pain, leaving me unable to move.

The pain didn't happen. It hadn't happened ever since I had directly fought and _spoke_ with the Chimera in the Prometheus labs back on the Hippocrates. I had heard its voice in my head, calling me tar eleven or tar ender or something like that. It had then conveyed a series of images into my head. Some of them had been my own memories, while others had been images I didn't recognize and hadn't fully been able to make up. I remembered images of broken cities, shadows in the sky, metal claws, red lights, a loud horn…. And a hunger. These creatures were hungry.

A flash of light from Cade's motorcycle pulled me back into the present. I watched as my friend triggered his booster jets, shooting himself out of his seat and into the air. His motorcycle sped on towards the crowd of Corpsers, three glowing blue orbs attached to the handle-bars.

The bike slammed into their front ranks, knocking down a trio of the snarling creatures before detonating in a brilliant flash of blue light that rooted more than a dozen of them in place, writhing from the electric shock.

Elektra and I simultaneously pulled our bikes over and got off. I immediately tossed two of my sticky grenades, aiming at one of the Changers. They slammed into its cable-arm and blew it off in a gory mess, killing a trio of Corpsers who had been standing too close. The Changer didn't say a thing, instead it shoved another Corpser out of the way and began moving towards us.

Its head flew off in a shower of blue fluid as Cade emptied his Black Widow right between its eyes. The creatures howled in fury and as one they all sprinted towards the turian Spectre.

I pulled out my pistol and fired a volley of shots at their legs in an attempt to slow them down, but only managing to knock a couple of them down. Cade jetted away but it would only buy him a few seconds at most.

Elektra suddenly appeared in front of Cade, hands blazing with blue biotic fire. With a yell she slammed them down on the ground in front of her, causing a series of rippling, purple waves to spew forth and slam into the oncoming horde. Most were knocked back, but some were thrown up in the air where they floated suspended and primed.

I immediately tossed a Warp into the primed, floating enemies, detonating them and tearing them to shreds. Cade took the opportunity to shoot three more Corpsers with his Black Widow to buy them a bit more breathing room.

More Corpsers and a wave of Crawlers that had pulled their way out of the creatures we destroyed and charged, this time right at Elektra. The female Spectre let them get close, then with a tremendous yell she slammed one fist down on the ground in front of her. Her shields faded with a snap and the air around her suddenly shimmered with biotic fire, expanding outwards and destroying the oncoming horde. I could see her shoulders rising and falling heavily as she panted hard from the exertion. The nova had drained her shields and left her vulnerable.

Cade jetted forwards, grabbed her with one hand and pulled her behind him. His other now held his Vindicator which he was letting out bursts from. I joined him and began firing shots from my Predator pistol. I swore that if I survived this I'd start bringing along a third weapon like Cade and Elektra did. Elektra came up on my left, shields having recharged, and began to fire into the creatures with her N7 Hurricane.

Suddenly the gates leading into the spaceport opened and several massive armored figures walked out, appearing behind the remaining creatures. One was clad in N7 armor while two of were batarians in thick, modified Blue Suns armor adorned with black script, shoulder guards with jutting, metal spikes, and full-faced helmets with gold batarian skulls painted on them. Behind them were numerous smaller figures in lesser-adorned Blue Suns armor and green combat suits, and even a trio of black-armored Jaegers.

Percival immediately threw a pair of inferno grenades into the back-ranks of the creatures, setting a dozen of them ablaze. The shorter batarian in the highly-decorated armored had an M-451 Firestorm pressed to his shoulder. He unleashed a torrent of flame that melted the creatures down to molten husks and which left the ground glassy and steaming.

The other Blue Suns hung back and fired into the monsters from a safe distance. I watched as a snarling salarian Corpser leaped over the flames directly towards the largest, armored batarian.

I watched in morbid admiration as the massive batarian grabbed it out of the air by the neck and held it out at arm's length, silencing its snarling. The creature began to claw viciously at the batarians arms, but the modified armor was just too thick for its claws to go through.

The batarian pulled back its other first. A series of dull spikes about two-inches thick suddenly emerged from the knuckles of its heavy gauntlet. Without a sound, the batarian began to drive his fist repeatedly into the creatures face.

The first hit went crashing into its elongated mouth, sending a cascade of broken salarian and metal teeth to the ground below. The second hit slammed into the creature's metal eyes, showering the batarian's chestplate, gloves, and his helmet and the golden skull painted on it in blue and green blood. On the third hit, the Corpser suddenly stopped struggling and went slack in the massive batarian's grasp. By the time he had finished his fourth hit, you could not tell what species that the Corpser had once been.

The three of us had stopped firing and merely watched as the batarian brutally reduced the Corpsers face to gory bits of flesh and metal. The batarian grunted something I couldn't understand in a mercenary dialect and dropped the deceased Corpser to the ground. He raised a heavily-armored boot and brought it crashing down onto the Corpser's bloated stomach, popping it and crushing the Crawlers residing within. The batarian grunted in disgust and started walking towards us.

" _Spirits…"_ whispered Cade.

By then the rest of the creatures had been put down. Percival watched the two Butchers of Bahak stomp towards us with a wary look on his face. He had clearly not been impressed with the raw display of strength and brutality that the older Ghar'aran brother had exhibited.

The three Jaegers had removed their helmets, revealing the stunned faces of Teewin, Jay, and Soph. Teewin looked especially surprised. He was a big marine – maybe six-and-a-half feet tall and thus taller than either of the two batarians, but the sheer size of the Ghar'aran brothers made them look even larger.

Revak Gha'aran stepped over a pile of smoldering corpses, his younger brother close behind him. He pulled off his helmet to reveal his burned face with its two sightless eyes, looked around in disgust at the carnage surrounding him, and then at me. Malan did the same.

I removed my helmet and moved to meet him. To Cade and Elektra's credit, both of them were right behind me.

"These creatures… I have never seen anything like them," Revak Ghar'aran growled. His brother grunted in agreement and kicked at the dead Changer.

"They are unclean… monstrosities that deserve nothing but destruction," added Malan.

"Yes," I agreed. "You see what's at stake now? If we don't work together – if don't cooperate and stop butting heads, then _this_ will happen on a hundred or a thousand different planets," I said, gesturing at the corpse-ridden plain and the dying city.

Revak nodded, then turned to his men. He slammed both palms into chestplate and roared. "Brothers! Taking Council credits warms my heart, but I will not stand idly by while the free citizens of the Terminus Systems are slaughtered by these unclean beings! This planet is now under the protection of the Blue Suns!"

His men roared and cheered with him. A few of them fired off rounds into the air. Satisfied, Revak turned back to me and nodded. "I now see that we truly have a common goal, Drak'Takai…. What would you have our men do?"

Inside I was slightly relieved at having the tension between our two factions assuaged so quickly. I had been afraid that our past histories would get in the way of us performing our mission effectively, but witnessing the horrors that these creatures wrought had brought us together and erased differences in a way that I had not anticipated. We had a common goal now— the preservation of the innocent. The Blue Suns despite their questionable history were still unwilling to see living beings slaughtered by mindless machines.

"Have your fleet send down the rest of your men, along with portable gun emplacements, armored fighting vehicles, and barricades. We need to set up defensive points along the wall from where we can provide covering fire for incoming refugees and at the same time keep the plains clear. Then we need to start sending out men to escort and bring back survivors to the spaceport and begin evacuating them up into your ships," I ordered.

Revak and Malan both nodded. "I will reach out to a few contacts of mine, see if we can't get more Blue Suns from the other chapters to join us," Revak grunted.

I quickly considered the options. On one hand, I did not want news of these creatures spreading, but on the other hand it wasn't likely that this could be kept a secret for much longer, especially now that we had gotten planet-wide communications back on line. We would also soon have to begin monitoring outgoing transmissions to ensure that panic wouldn't spread to neighboring systems.

"Do it," I finally said. "And make sure your men can keep a secret, we can't risk riots and panic spreading on other worlds."

"I will only reach out to those I trust," Revak agreed.

The large batarian held out a massive hand. I grabbed it without hesitating and squeezed it as hard as I could – something that the batarian reciprocated in kind.

I blinked back tears and waited for the batarian to pull back first. Eventually he did, and the two Blue Suns commanders began to walk back to the spaceport.

"You fight well, Drak'Takai," Malan added. "Thank you for saving our Lieutenant and his men."

I waved a hand dismissively. I glanced at Percival, who looked approvingly at me. He had more reason than anyone to hate these batarians, but even Percival knew that if we were to survive this and save the inhabitants of this planet, we would have to work together.

Cade brought a hand down onto my shoulder from beside me and grinned. "What was it you said back on the Hippocrates, about Jaelen and the video you hesitated in showing him? "Trust them until we can't, then shoot them?" Well, good luck with that if _those_ two betray you, I'll be sure to tell them to have a closed-casket funeral."

"In all my years as a Spectre, I've never seen anyone do anything like that, and I've fought and killed more krogan and yahg than I can count. Today has truly been a day of firsts," Elektra added.

I rubbed my jaw with one hand and began to walk towards the spaceport. Today was a win, but we had a lot of work to do if we wanted to end this.

"Let's go guys, the day has just started," I said.


	33. Chapter 33 - Battle of Bahak - Part 3

**Chapter 3 – Early Grave**

* * *

 _(_ _Ten years ago)_

 _February 22_ _nd_ _, 2201, 0947 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Fifteen minutes after landing on Bahak_

Percival's boots carved heavy divots into the sand as he sprinted through the no-man's land towards the slaver's lines. His rifle was pressed tightly to his chest and his shoulders were drawn inward as he attempted to make himself as small a target as possible. Behind him charged the rest of his platoon – around twenty marines, all of them angry at the friends that they had lost. All of them determined to make the batarians pay.

While the rest of the company was still screaming lustily at the rousing words of their captain, Percival instead chose to save his breath for the matter at hand. Instead he focused on drawing air deep into his lungs – focused on expelling all the carbon dioxide his body was producing. While Kara, Ducky, and Jazz were all still screaming their heads off, Percival was entering a trance.

The enemy trenches were less than twenty meters away now, but none of the batarians had yet to respond to the charge thanks to Zulu Company's massive wave of suppressing fire. Percival put on one more burst of speed and pulled ahead of his platoon. His left hand fell from the barrel of his Lancer to the grenade belt at his waist. He ripped a grenade from his belt, primed it, and tossed it directly into the trench in-front of him.

The grenade went off with a thundering boom, throwing up sand, blood, and bits of armor. Percival rolled into the trench and landed in a crouch amidst a mass of scattered, batarian bodies. Some were bleeding while others merely looked to be disoriented. A few who had been further from the explosion were pulling themselves to their feet and scrabbling for their weapons.

" _Lok Nag Madan!"_ A brutish voice exclaimed. One of the nearby slavers raised a hairy paw and pointed at Percival, gesturing for the rest of his comrades to shoot. Percival raised his rifle and put a burst into the slaver's battered armor, shattering it and killing him instantly. The slaver slumped against the trench, his head lolling lifelessly.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose up and Percival instinctively threw himself to the side. A barrage of spikes raked through the air where he'd been standing a mere split-second before. Percival dropped to a knee and returned fire, his return-burst catching the slaver in the faceplate of his helmet and blowing out his brains in a fine, crimson mist.

A few of the other slavers not killed by his initial grenade-toss were beginning to stir, but Percival ignored them and began to pull himself out of the trench, heading for the next one. He didn't bother to look back, trusting the rest of his squad to handle the stragglers. A few recognizable shouts told him that Cormack and Kane had stayed behind to clear the trench while the sound of overlapping footsteps, unhappy muttering and a light, cheerful whoop told him that Kara and Ducky were currently right behind him.

He ignored a few small trenches, occasionally gunning down a slaver who had exposed himself to fire upon his fellow marines but otherwise leaving them for the rest of his company. Instead he set his sights on the large trench ahead. The trench ahead was larger and had smaller, interconnecting trenches as well as intersections where Percival could see fortifications had been placed. Percival could see marines from other companies running towards other parts of this larger trench.

"Platoon on me!" He bellowed into his radio. The fighting here would be among the thickest, and Percival wasn't one to hang back and let others fight the harder fights.

" _Roger that, LT."_

" _Affirmative."_

The effects of Zulu Company's suppressive fire had started to wear off and the slavers were starting to regain their senses and return fire. A rain of spikes whistled past him but he ignored them like he ignored the cries of the marines that they hit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw another marine suddenly get impaled by a large harpoon from an active Kishook, but he ignored that too. He ignored it all— all the fear, the anxiety, the screaming—and focused on the just getting himself to the trench.

He primed another grenade – this time an inferno grenade – and tossed it at the point he intended to enter the trench. Unlike his last one, this grenade went off with barely a sound, allowing the screams of the batarians caught in the flames to reach his ears. He pressed a button on the barrel of his rifle, causing the omni-blade attachment to spring to life, and leapt into the trench.

He landed among the flames like a demon from hell, knees slightly bent to absorb the shock. Around him were the charred, smoldering corpses of nearly half a dozen slavers. He had landed in a small clearing that he surmised to be an intersection judging by the number of branching pathways. Unlike the last trench, this one was almost three times as wide and ran for much further in either direction. Ahead of him the trench opened up wide to continue deeper into the batarian lines. He could see slavers running towards him, screaming angry curses in the batarian language.

He ignored them and focused on the still enemies around him. The floor of the trench was glassy where his grenade had gone off and the air around him still shimmered from the heat. A batarian stood a foot away from where he'd landed, trying desperately to put out the flames currently eating their way up his legs. The slaver looked up in surprise and pain at the massive marine that had suddenly materialized seemingly out of nowhere, surrounded by fire and the bodies of his fellow slavers.

" _Madan! Tan Madan gotak ka tala—!"_ The batarian cried. Percival violently drove the omni-blade of his rifle deep into the batarian's chest. The slaver's fingers made a few feeble attempts to grab his rifle, but that soon stopped as his heart gave out.

He raised a hand and quickly shoved the batarian off of his blade, lifting his rifle to unleash a barrage of suppressive fire towards a group of slavers charging towards him. All but one went down just as his rifle overheated and began to cool down. The batarian let out a long, angry scream and threw his weapon to the ground. He lowered his bladed shoulder and dashed right at him.

Percival ripped his combat knife from his-sheath, side-stepped at the last moment and jammed it up to the hilt in the base of the slaver's neck as he flew past him. The batarian crumpled like a puppet with his strings cut and landed face-first over the burning body of another of his fellow slavers.

All around him his fellow marines were landing in the trenches, careful to avoid falling into the flames that still licked hungrily at Percival's boots. A few of them fired bursts into the fallen batarians while several fanned out to cover the side passages. Individual batarians and small groups of two or three would stumble out of an adjoining trench to attack them but they would be quickly cut down by the more-coordinated Systems Alliance marines. The bulk of the slavers must have been pre-occupied elsewhere.

A batarian turned a corner only to be met with a hail of bullets from Percival's Lancer, as did his friend behind him. Yet a third batarian passed the threshold but unfortunately he made the fatal mistake of stopping to mourn his fellow slaver – the second one that Percival had shot.

" _Pardak! Erak T'chak Gante! Pardak!"_ he wailed mournfully. The batarian looked at the body of his friend and the spike-rifle clutched in his gloved hands dipped ever so briefly.

Every Systems Alliance marine had a universal e-translator that parsed alien languages into either English, Spanish, or Mandarin and parsed their own tongues into the alien tongues used by the many races of the galaxy. Unfortunately, that technology sometimes did not work with uncommon sub-dialects. While Percival and his marines could understand common Batarian, the slavers were using a crude, mercenary dialect that their translators couldn't parse. However, the tone of the exclamation was clear. Pain was one thing that seemed to transcend all species.

Percival trained his rifle on the mourning batarian but some nagging feeling kept him from pulling the trigger. Before he could even question what it was a hail of gunfire from somewhere to his left cut the slaver down. He frowned as Kara marched up to stand beside him with her Lancer raised. Around him his marines were making quick work of the remaining slavers. Percival knew better than to celebrate just yet. the ones manning the outer lines were hardly going to be a part of the slavers' elite forces.

"You had just given him another reason to kill you, LT. Now's not the time to get soft," she said with a grin.

How her customarily cheeky demeanor somehow manifested itself even in the midst of battle, Percival didn't know. If it was a façade it was well-practiced. That sort of façade was hard to keep up when all you could hear around you was gunfire and the pained cries of dying marines. Ducky and Jazz pulled up beside her while Sterling, Kane, Cormack and Woodhouse pulled up on his right.

"Any idea what "Pardak, Erak T'chak Gante, Pardak" means?" Percival asked her. For some reason a part of him couldn't shake those words.

Kara shrugged as did a few of the other marines but Sterling sheepishly raised a hand. "I think it means "Get up, Brother!" in one of the more uncommon Karshan dialects. Pardak must have been his name," he explained.

"How the actual fuck could you possibly know that?" complained Private Kane.

"I was in ops support before transferring to the frontlines, plus I've got a talented tongue," shrugged Sterling. Both Kane and Cormack rolled their eyes, eliciting a small grin from the heavy machine gunner.

"Can we cut the shit and try to remember that we have a horde of angry slavers trying to kill us?" whined Ducky. The marine had taken a knee to the entrance to another trench and had his rifle trained down it. Somewhere far down that way they could see tracers and spikes flying back and forth.

"The corporal is right, let's get back to business," Percival said authoritatively. The grieving slaver was banished to the back of his brain, where he would wait his turn to reappear among Percival's nightmares. Percival then pressed a finger to his comms. "Dimi, Ruiz, take your squads and clear the left and right passageways, Fairy your squad is with mine! We've still got an entire front to clear!" He barked.

" _Roger!"_ the two NCO's replied. Percival watched as each squad took to one of the smaller passageways that ran parallel to the large one Percival and the rest of his platoon. The loss of Carrsen and Eugene had left a noticeable hole in Gunnery Chief Dimitrios' squad while Ruiz's squad was missing Ivanovich. Hopefully they'd gotten her to a medic in the back lines.

The remaining marines of his platoon grouped up and formed up behind him. They'd be going straight down the gut.

James marched up beside him at the head of his squad. The short marine looked no worse for wear unlike the rest of his men. Percival could see that a few of them had taken light grazes. Michaels in particular had taken a nasty spike to the forearm. It was currently still there, although a generous amount of medi-gel had been smeared around the entry and exit wound. The corporal caught Percival looking and gave him a thumbs-up which Percival returned.

"What a fucking morning, any word from the captain?" James asked.

"None yet," Percival replied. "Our orders still stand though, take these lines and establish an LZ. You're still with me on this one, right?"

His Gunnery Chief chuckled like a father would after hearing their kid ask a stupid question. "You get hit in the head on the way in or something? Of course I am."

Percival smiled, then opened up the channel to the rest of his marines. "Let's go, onto the next intersection! We need to take their lines before the artillery touches down!" He barked again.

He took point, his Lancer raised. Way down the trench he could see an oversized platoon-strength group of slavers angrily defending an intersection against another platoon of marines. A couple of spikes shot down the trench that Percival and his platoon were currently heading down but luckily the trench was wide enough that his marines could spread out and avoid getting hit. The slavers didn't seem to be watching the trench that they were in, with any luck they'd be able to take them by surprise.

"We're coming up on an enemy strongpoint, soften them with grenades and set up a crossfire but don't charge. You don't want to get caught in friendly-fire," Percival quietly ordered.

He could hear the rasps of helmets and some quiet acknowledgement lights from his marines. Gunfire and screaming filled the air from both wounded slavers and marines alike but the platoon didn't make so much as a whisper as they advanced to flank the slaver position.

They set up behind a few lines of sandbags not twenty meters from the slavers. The slavers had set up their fortifications on a small, man-made hill of dirt, giving them a height advantage that allowed them to suppress some of the other marines from the battalion currently trying to push past this point.

"Ready grenades," Percival whispered over the comms. Jazz, Kara and Ducky all prepped grenades and stealthily moved to take up places beside him. Thankfully the batarians hadn't noticed the marines encroaching on their flank.

Things went south before Percival could even blink. The platoon that had been attacking the position suddenly decided to break ranks and charge. Percival watched as two marines went down with spikes through their faceplates but the rest of them pressed on, intent on seizing the fortification. Before he knew it they were at the hill and engaging the batarians at close-quarters, robbing Percival's platoon of the ability to use their grenades.

"Shit! What the fuck are they doing?" James shouted.

"Fairy, have your squad cover the other platoon! Jazz, Ducky, Kara on me!" Percival screamed.

He wasn't going to stand by and let the other platoon get massacred by the better-entrenched force. Percival vaulted over the sandbags and began sprinting towards the hill, the marines from his fire-team close behind him. The batarians were preoccupied with making mince-meat out of the other charging platoon and were thus unprepared for Percival's little improvisation.

"I thought we _weren't_ charging!" Ducky screamed as a line of spikes embedded themselves in the ground a foot away from where he was running.

Kara laughed and fired mid-stride at a slaver taking aim at a wounded marine. "What's the matter Duck? You trying to live forever or something?" came her breathy reply over the squad-com.

Percival leapt and in one fluid motion heaved himself over the fortifications, his boot colliding heavily with a slaver about to fire on a fellow marine. The slaver stumbled and growled and attempted to bring his Spike-rifle to bear but was quickly gunned down by Jazz, who had followed right behind Percival. The marine lieutenant gave his subordinate a nod of appreciation stepped over the dead slaver and sprayed his Lancer at a group of slavers still taking shots at the other platoon.

" _I'm bringing up the rest of the platoon! You watch yourself!"_ James called out over the comms.

A few of the slavers had begun to take notice of Percival's little intrusion but by then the rest of his fireteam had made it up into the fortifications. They began prioritizing the slavers who were still trying to target the rest of the other platoon, leaving the slavers who had begun to react to Percival's assault.

Every marine hated quasi-close quarters fighting, the kind of fighting where both you and your opponent were too close to effectively use a long-barreled weapon and yet too far away for knives. The corporal and the private were no slouches in the close-quarters combat department, but they both lacked the reflexes and the combat intuition that came so naturally to Percival in a situation such as this.

As Jazz and Ducky gunned down the slavers who were slightly further away, Percival parried a slaver's bladed spike-rifle with his M7 Lancer. For a moment they struggled, locked in a battle of strength.

Percival took a single step back and to the left, causing the batarian to overextend and stumble forward just a foot. The marine lashed out with his boot and tripped the batarian as he stumbled, causing him to land face-first in the dirt. Without a second thought, Percival drilled a burst into the back of his head.

A loud howl caused his helmet to vibrate. A nearby batarian flung his spike-rifle to the ground with a cry and charged at Percival. The marine lieutenant ducked beneath his charge, pivoting so that he was now behind the batarian. As the slaver attempted to turn around and meet him, Percival put the barrel of his rifle against the slaver's chest and triggered the omni-blade attachment. He went down with a gurgle.

Percival turned just in time to see a pair of slavers who had him in their sights get gunned down.

"—Turning your back on the enemy, what the fuck are you thinking?" James cussed at him. The rest of his platoon had arrived.

"I was thinking that you were watching my back!" Percival grinned.

Another slaver popped up, only to be gunned down by both marines.

"I am going to request a new first lieutenant as soon as we get off this rock," James muttered. The clatter M7 Lancer fire was now vastly outstripping the whine from the slaver's spike-rifles. The marines from the platoon that had foolishly charged the front of the hill in a direct assault were finally able to do some damage now that Percival had diverted enough attention from them and the slavers were now being decimated from both sides.

"And I am going to request a new gunnery chief as soon as we take this damn hill, maybe get someone I can finally see eye-to-eye with," Percival joked in return.

The short marine bristled, "Oh motherf—"

"The Systems Alliance should really stop recruiting hobbits, huh?" Kara laughed.

"I'll have to make sure our next transfer isn't from the Shire," Percival chuckled. His rifle overheated and he immediately let it fall. Before it had even hit the ground his M-5 Phalanx was out and he was giving one last slaver a quartet of new eye-sockets. A few chuckles started to come up over the comms, one of the marines in James' squad slapped the small gunnery chief on the back.

"Yeah, where'd they find the Gunnery Chief anyway? Khazad-dum?" Sterling cried out.

The last of the slavers finally fell, and the only living, breathing things up on that hill were wearing Systems Alliance blue. A few marines looked oddly at the heavy machine gunner.

"Cause you were talking about lord of the—,"

Kara shoved her friend roughly, causing the big gunner to stumble onto his knees and nearly impale himself on the bladed pauldrons of a slaver corpse.

"Shut the fuck up, nerd."

Though the hill was now theirs they still had to take the rest of the trenches. Percival loaded a new ammunition block into his Lancer, checked the heatsink, and began to make his way back down the hill.

"Platoon on me!" Percival shouted. "Check your heat sinks, were keeping this party going!"

"You heard the Lieutenant!" James grunted. "Now is not the fucking time! We still have an ass-load of slavers to deal with!"

Percival gestured for the second lieutenant leading the other platoon to leave a few men behind to guard the wounded and for the rest to follow him. The second lieutenant was in no position to disagree. His eyes were cold and glassy and he seemed to be able to do little else but nod. He waved at his men to follow behind Percival's platoon.

The platoon finally reached a long trench that ran perpendicular to theirs. Steps had been carved out on both walls of the trench to allow shooters to fire over the trench. Percival could see almost a dozen other smaller trenches just like the one his platoon had just emerged out of opening up into this one. From these adjoining trenches emerged the other platoons from the 104th. It had to be the final line.

Percival recognized a familiar marine with a set of Staff Lieutenant bars on his pauldrons standing up on one of the steps, firing over the lip of the trench. He leapt up onto the step beside him with a single leap and took a knee.

"Avery!" he called out. "What's the situation?"

Staff Lieutenant Avery Miller whipped around and crouched to avoid the incoming enemy fire. The marine turned around and depolarized his faceplate.

"Percival!" he cried. "Get your men up on the line! The rest of the slavers have pulled out and set up defenses about fifty meters north of the trench!"

The slavers were smart. They were unwilling to fight the Alliance at close quarters even with their spike rifles and bladed armor, and instead had chosen to move the battle to where they had the tactical advantage. They had pulled out of the trenches and had set up a line of defenses at the very entrance to the valley. They had the relative high ground, and the entire battalion would have to cross yet another killing field if they wanted to finish off the batarians.

Percival nodded. "Platoon! Get up there and lay down some fire!"

"Roger that Lieutenant!" Kara cried. "Woodhouse, Jazz, Ducky on me!" The corporal gestured to two other members of first squad and together they raced up onto the steps and started firing out of the trench. "Sterls, Cormy, Kane, focus on the kishook emplacement!"

Percival turned back to Avery. "Where's the captain?"

The staff lieutenant pointed behind them, Percival's blue eyes followed his finger and eventually spotted him. He brought his gauntlet up in a quick salute.

Marines had stopped pouring out from the adjoining trenches. Every last one looked like they had been through hell, one in every five were sporting some sort of wound. Percival couldn't help notice that there were a lot less marines now than there were a short hour ago. Even if they could seize the line and allow for the heavy artillery to land, Percival wasn't sure that the battalion would have enough men to actually seize the facilities, especially if they had to fight across fifty yards with no cover.

A hand reached out and tapped Percival on the armored thigh. Percival looked down and spotted a slim, female marine from Zulu Company with a pair of second lieutenant bars and carrying a massive M-110 Crocodile Heavy Machine Gun. She raised a gauntlet and held it out to Percival.

" _Mind giving me a hand, first lieutenant?"_ quipped Second Lieutenant Guinevere Lockley.

His heart lit up with relief. At least she was still alive. Percival depolarized his faceplate so Guinevere could see the big smile he had plastered on his face. He grabbed her and helped her up onto the step where she immediately dug the tripod of her weapon over the lip of the trench and started firing.

A hail of spikes flew over Percival's head. A few combat technicians tried to send their drones across the no-man's land to disrupt the batarian defenses but they were gunned down before they could do any real damage. Carnage rounds couldn't be fired fifty yards away, and very few of the marines had any long-range weapons.

Zulu Company had the heavy weapons, but even with their combined firepower the rest of the 104th were having trouble shooting through the thick web of metal barricades and energy shields that the slavers had set up. Percival cursed, they were going to have to charge if they wanted to end this.

A gruff voice suddenly came up over the battalion-wide channel, " _Marines of the 104_ _th_ _and the 78_ _th_ _, this is Fleet Admiral Octavian. Hold your positions."_

"What the fuck?" Sterling shouted.

A low, rapidly-repeating rumble suddenly began to assault Percival's ear drums. A quartet of M-49 Thresher Fighter Jet suddenly flew down the batarian line, spewing depleted titanium rounds. Columns of flame erupted from where the fighters had dropped mini-thermobaric payloads onto the slavers. Off in the distance Percival could see another squadron doing the same for the marines of the 78th. The rumble was replaced with the guttural screams of hundreds of slavers.

"The 63rd fucking did it!" laughed Ducky. "They brought down the space cannons!"

The screams were drowned out by the drone of more than a dozen massive M-87 Goblins that suddenly appeared in the airspace above the battalion, each with an M-178 heavy artillery battery clamped underneath. They all simultaneously released their cargo and twelve, massive metal behemoths dropped onto the blood-soaked sands. They were each the size of a small house, with a single barrel nearly two-and-a-half feet in diameter and twelve meters long protruding from their metal bodies.

The bay doors of all twelve Goblins opened up and from each popped out a pair of M-44 Hammerheads. They immediately began flitting around like their namesakes, firing on the surviving batarians.

Percival could see a few platoons from the 63rd emerging from the Goblins. They carefully rappelled down to cover the batteries, accompanied by several platoons of the specialized combat medics that were going to be assisting them once they had found the slaves. Those immediately rushed to the surviving marines of the 104th and began providing treatment. A few were led off deeper into the trenches by some of the more able-bodied marines to help those who had been left behind in the taking of the trench.

"You know, Octavian ain't bad for a chief squid, even if I could have really used a 'danger close'," Jazz nodded in appreciation. A few of Percival's marines grunted in agreement. Fleet Admiral Octavian had been in charge of the 9th fleet ever since it had been formed eight years ago. Percival was willing to bet that most upper-echelon naval officers wouldn't have diverted two squadrons protecting their precious ships just to paste a few slavers on the ground, especially with a ton of enemy ships still kicking around in orbit.

"He takes good care of his men," James called out from somewhere down the line. "I've served with him for the last six years, he won't spill any more grunt blood than he has to."

Percival sighed and wished dearly that he could remove his helmet and run a hand through his hair, but protocol wouldn't allow him to do so until the area was cleared. They all watched slack-mouthed as the Hammerheads made short work of the remaining slavers on the field. No one wanted to interfere with the Hammerheads. With the threat gone, the battalion's combat engineers began to calibrate the batteries while the 63rd covered them.

He turned to where the captain was and saluted once more. Percival wasn't looking forward to seeing the casualty reports from the last two hours. He had lost men from his platoon and his company before, but he had never lost them in such large numbers. He suspected that casualties were going to be in the ballpark of twenty-five percent battalion-wide. A lot of marines had been lost taking the landing zone, and even more would lose their lives reaching and taking the facilities.

Percival finally broke out of his salute, his hand dropping limply to his side. He was just about to grab his rifle when his hand suddenly found itself filled with the smaller hand of the marine beside him. Second Lieutenant Guinevere Lockley looked at him and smiled her beautiful smile.

Percival returned it and squeezed her hand gently. He wouldn't die here, no he wouldn't.

* * *

 _(_ _Ten years ago)_

 _February 22_ _nd_ _, 2201, 1011 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Somewhere out on the Dunes of Bahak_

Percival let his helmet drop from limp hands and let out a shudder.

His captain stood where he had last seen him. Blood dripped down his fingers onto the bloody sand.

Surrounding him were the surviving platoon leaders of X-Ray Company. A vein pulsed across the temple of Staff Lieutenant Avery Miller as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his teeth. His chestplate and armored arms were coated with human blood, but Percival couldn't tell if it had come from him or some other poor, unfortunate marine. Judging by the quantity, it had likely come from multiple donors.

Second Lieutenant Alexa Volkov was crouched a few feet away, hands propped on her M7 Lancer that she had laying across her knees. She had a few gashes and indents on her armor from a couple of near misses but otherwise appear unharmed. She coughed a few times and angrily spat a wad of blood and phlegm on the sand beside her.

Percival looked around, Second Lieutenant Adito Yogambe was nowhere to be seen.

Captain Michael Garen's helmet lay at his feet. His eyes stared off to where the surviving members of his battalion were currently regrouping for the next push.

Percival was the first to make a move. He took a few steps towards his captain, reached out a bloody hand and gently closed the captain's eyes. He then removed the tags from around the captain's neck and held them out to the Staff Lieutenant, who shook his head and indicated for Percival to keep them. Percival slid them into a utility pouch and sighed again.

Avery walked over and wrapped a hand around the shaft of the oversized kishock harpoon, giving it a slight tug. The captain's body swayed at the gesture.

"Better to leave him there," Alexa grunted.

It had been a lucky shot by some lucky batarian. The harpoon had likely been fired at a steep angle. It had arced high, out of the line of sight of its victim, and had gone right through the captain's chest, embedding itself deep into the sand behind him.

"I am not leaving him here, Alexa!" Avery spat. He threw down his Lancer and took the shaft in both hands, tugging harder.

"Let him be, better that he remain on his feet than be covered up by this accursed sand," the second lieutenant returned.

Elias ignored her and tugged even harder. Percival quickly brushed away his tears and moved to grab his new CO.

"Staff, stop!" Percival cried hoarsely. The captain's body quivered as the staff lieutenant continued to work on the harpoon. "Stop it!"

Avery made to shove his fellow marine away, but Percival was several inches taller and much more solid. He grabbed Avery and pried him away from the captain. The staff lieutenant struggled but eventually gave way.

Elias wrenched himself away from Percival and screamed in anger, kicking at the corpse of a nearby slaver.

Alexa got up from her crouch. She walked over to the captain and gently placed a hand on his chestplate, muttering in Russian. Afterwards, Alexa picked up Elias's Lancer from where it lay in the sand, dusted it off, and held it out to the new commanding officer of X-Ray Company.

Avery accepted it and clipped it on his back. He pressed the palms of his hands against his face and gave a long, low groan. His two fellow platoon commanders waited patiently beside him as the man grieved.

When he finally removed his hands, Avery looked a lot more composed. He looked as if the man he had served under for more than half a decade wasn't impaled on a harpoon just a few feet behind him. He booted up his omni-tool and pulled up the company roster, scrolling down the list. Percival winced at the sheer number of flatlines.

"Second Lieutenant Yogambe's dead, company casualties are at nearly a quarter, with maybe eighty percent of those fatalities," the Staff Lieutenant quietly reported.

Percival winced. In a company of 160 marines, that meant there were about 120 marines still standing. His own platoon had fared only slightly better. Seven marines out of his platoon of thirty-two were down for the count. Both Alexa and Avery's platoon had taken a similar amount of casualties. The captain's platoon had been hit the lightest, while Yogambe's platoon was half-gone.

The Staff Lieutenant tapped another button on his omni-tool and pulled up four other rosters, each one representing one of the other four companies in the battalion. Glancing at the list, Percival could see swaths of black where whole squads had been wiped out. He didn't try and look too closely, lest he spot a blacked-out name of a marine that he knew too well, but he couldn't help but notice that his company was the only company who had lost their commanding officer. Though a few lieutenants were KIA, Major Fergusson and the other captains were still kicking.

"Battalion casualties are around thirty percent," Avery continued, "with the rest of the 63rd and the special combat medics we should be back up to slightly over full strength."

"How are we splitting 1st and 4th platoon?" Alexa asked, referring to the captain and Yogambe's former platoons.

"4th will go to a first lieutenant from the 63rd who will be attached to our company. I'm going to put Gunnery Chief Suen in temporary command of the 1st. Each platoon is also getting four combat doctors-slash-psychiatrists-slash-whatever." Avery replied. "Keep them alive. Just because they're combat certified doesn't mean they've seen actual combat. Aside from that, two platoons from the 63rd will be joining our company for the duration of the mission."

He then pulled up a map of Slaver Valley. Four mineral extraction and processing plants which doubled as slave facilities were scattered along the southern half of the valley, while another four were in the northern half. They were large, ugly structures with the typical batarian spiky architecture and could have potentially held up to a battalion of slavers each, but our intel said that they were mostly filled with slaves.

"The 78th will take the top four facilities, while we get the south. Each company takes a facility while Zulu company guards the valley entrance, just in case there are any enemy forces elsewhere on this planet headed our way. We don't have any information on the status of the interior other than second-hand information, but our informants told us we can expect large open spaces with a lot of refinery equipment, conveyor belts, and walkways."

"Fine by me, better than close quarters with the batarians," Alexa shrugged.

"Once you secure the facility, find the slaves and call it in," Avery continued. "Admiral Octavian will get his rescue ships down as soon as they finish up with the rest of the batarian fleet."

"How long do you think that'll be, Staff?" Percival asked.

Avery rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "No idea, last I heard half the batarian fleet was still kicking while the 9th was at 70% operational capacity. We take that facility and we hold it until they say differently."

"One more thing," Avery added. The new commander of the battalion pulled up the picture of two batarians. Both of them had uncommon, goldish-yellow skin.

"These are the Ghararan brothers, former SIU, heads of the largest slaver ring, and rumored to be coordinating the defense of Bahak. One of the platoons managed to get positive ID's during the battle but couldn't confirm whether or not they'd been KIA. They probably retreated to one of the facilities. They're dangerous and a lot more tactically-inclined than most slavers. They're high-value targets, watch out for them and kill them if you can."

Percival stared at the picture in front of him. Unlike other species, batarians had four eyes – impenetrable pools of black. Most creatures on earth and on other planets usually had pupils with colored irises and white sclera. Batarian eyes seemed a whole lot more menacing, soulless, and just downright evil to Percival, especially when paired with the knowledge that these individuals were largely responsible for tearing thousands of individuals away from their families—children, lovers, friends… kidnapped from their homes to rebuild the shattered batarian empire.

Avery shut off his omni-tool and shouldered his lancer. The three remaining lieutenants of X-Ray Company shared determined glances and tiny, resolute nods. Justice was never a sanctioned mission objective, but it could still be had nonetheless.

"We're going to kill these bastards and save some slaves. Go back to your marines and rest up, lieutenants. We move out in two hours," Avery ordered. Together, the three of them began to head back to where the rest of the company was camped.

Percival gave the captain's body one last look and wiped a line of tears from his eyes, then turned his gaze north towards the entrance to slaver's valley. A slight breeze picked up plumes of sand and swirled them around Percival's boots. A lot more marines would die before the day was finished.

" _Goodnight, captain,"_ he thought.

* * *

 _(_ _Ten years ago)_

 _February 22_ _nd_ _, 2201, 1022 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak_

 _(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104_ _th_ _Marines)_

 _Fifth Battalion Temporary FOB_

Percival wiped a line of sweat from his brow and took another big gulp of water. It was mid-morning on Bahak now, and the sun was starting to come up in full force.

The sound of marine chatter, booted footsteps on coarse sand and the low thrum emitted by the mass effect generators on the M-44 Hammerheads surrounded the Systems Alliance lieutenant. Several companies had erected large tents and shelters to keep away from the sun, while others took shelter either in the shadows cast by the trenches or the M-87 Goblins. Everyone except for those assigned to perimeter defense were resting in preparation for the assault on the facilities.

Percival came up to where his marines were currently camped. Jazz, Ducky and Kara were playing some sort of card-game while Woodhouse, Cormack, Sterling and Kane sat nearby, using the post-battle lull as an opportunity to inspect their armor and their weapons for any damages. Unlike his other three squads, none of his marines in his squad had been wounded. Sterling and Kane both had a few scratches on their armor from near-misses and Woodhouse received a light ankle sprain from jumping into a trench, but otherwise they were all intact. Unfortunately, Fairy's and Dimi's squad had each taken two casualties while Ruiz's had lost three marines.

The effect of the loss of seven of their friends on his surviving marines was palpable. Conversation was muted and terse. Tempers flared here and there over tiny, insignificant things that shouldn't have fazed such a tight-knit group of men and women. His platoon hadn't taken losses for almost a year, and most of the marines that had died today had been with the platoon ever since Percival had been given command of it nearly two years ago. The four remaining marines in Dimi's squad sat and stared listlessly at the sand surrounding them with a dull, distant look in their eyes.

Percival's quiet, almost-sullen arrival and the sad slump in his shoulders drew the attention of his marines. Kara looked up from her card game with a frown and waved a hand. "What's the word, LT? What did the captain say?"

Percival pursed his lips and shook his head sadly. His marines immediately began to whisper in disbelief. Some slowly shook their heads while others simply stopped what they were doing and stared at their lieutenant. The loss of their fellow marines had left the air cold and sour despite the burning, Bahak sun, but the news that their captain – the captain that they had all admired – had died threatened to undo them all right then and there.

"How did it happen?" Sterling demanded. The big marine shoved himself up onto his feet and pushed his way through a throng of fellow marines in an attempt to reach Percival. James luckily managed to stop the hulking, grieving marine a few feet away from him. "How the fuck did it happen?!"

Percival grabbed his helmet and twirled it a few times in-between his hands. "Kishook harpoon," he replied. "Happened sometime soon after we charged."

"Fuck!" Sterling screamed. He kicked at the ground, tossing up a plume of sand and marched off. Kane immediately followed and wrapped an arm around his buddy, whispering quietly to him.

Cormack sighed and buried his face in his hands. "What are we going to do, LT? What the fuck are we supposed to do?"

"Casualties are probably in the high twenties-low thirties across the company, and now we've also lost our commanding officer. I'm not sure we can take those facilities – not without help," Kara added.

"It's goddamn suicide!" grunted Ducky. "A million credits says every surviving slaver on this planet is currently waiting for us in one of those facilities! There could be thousands of them in there, entrenched and fortified, and we've got less than a battalion to take them! We should leave now and—"

"—And what? Sit on our asses while those fucking dirtbag murderers sit and laugh at us? Fuck that!" Sterling screamed. The big machine-gunner had returned, all hot, burning rage. He grabbed the smaller marine by his collar armor and pulled him in close. "Those fucking four-eyed bastards have to fucking pay for what they fucking did! They killed the goddamn captain!"

The smaller corporal was unfazed. "And they'll fucking kill us all too if we go in without backup!" Ducky retorted. "But maybe you're either too stupid to realize that!"

"—And maybe you're a fucking coward! You know how many fucking marines died just to get us this far? But I guess you don't give a rat's ass, do you? After all, it's only your first tour with us. Fuck us, right?

Things escalated when Ducky suddenly slammed his forehead into Sterling's nose, breaking it with a sickening crack. The vietnamese corporal then brought his armored hands up and then down hard on the inner elbows of the machine gunner, somehow managing to break the larger marine's grip. He then threw a quick jab at his chin, eliciting a grunt of pain.

The jab did nothing but irritate the larger marine. Sterling used the opportunity created by Ducky breaking his grip to wind up for a heavy, massive right hook to the smaller marine's side. It connected with a resounded thud that knocked the air out of Ducky and send him doubled-over in pain.

"Guys, stop it! Stop fighting!" Jazz yelled. She got up and tried to grab Sterling's arm but the larger marine easily shook her off, knocking her down. Some of the marines in Fairy's squad began to loudly place bets while others laughed at the sight of the physically-mismatched fight in an uncharacteristic display of cruelty. The marines were in pain – both from the loss of their captain and the loss of their friends. They knew that they were fighting a cruel, sadistic, and above all – desperate – enemy, and they knew that they were in all likeliness going to die in the next few hours. But what did it matter? There was a larger marine kicking the shit out of a smaller marine right in front of them. It was funny, and for a moment they could forget it all.

Sterling wound his arm up and launched another devastating haymaker, this time straight at the Ducky's face. Mere millimeters before it connected he felt himself suddenly jerked back by a large and powerful force. The big marine was yanked off his feet and thrown into the sand. Kane and Cormack immediately grabbed hold and held him down. The fall seemed to bring him to his senses. Ducky made a move towards Sterling but Fairy grabbed him in a headlock.

"Stop this, corporal!" Fairy grunted through clenched teeth.

Percival pulled Jazz to her feet then marched over to the marine he had just tossed aside like a ragdoll, blue eyes ablaze with anger and disbelief. Yes, he knew his marines would be in some pain, but to be fighting each other like this? It spat on the graves of all those who had died and disrespected their sacrifice.

"Stand down, marine! That's an order!" he barked. Percival whirled and pointed a finger at Ducky who was still struggling to break out of Fairy's hold. "Stand down! NOW!"

The murderous look in Sterling's eyes faded. Cormack and Kane loosened their grip and the big marine stood back up, brushing sand off of his armor. Ducky ceased his struggles, though he was breathing heavily and kept his eyes trained on Sterling. The cruel laughter died piece by piece as Percival spun and glared at each perpetrator. He didn't have to say anything to them. Each marine there filled with shame as they each caught a glimpse at the disappointed face of their commanding officer. Here wasn't some fresh-faced second lieutenant right out of Mars or Luna or Terra Nova. Here was a marine – young, yes, but brave and protective of the other marines under his command. Not once in the last two years since Percival had taken command had he ever made a marine take a risk or perform an order he wasn't willing to take or do himself. Here was a marine whom they had given their respect and trust, and whom they had received respect and trust from in return, and they could see it now in their commander's eyes that they were behaving undeservedly of it.

Percival looked around at his marines. They looked back like children who had done something wrong. He was angry, he was disappointed and yet he was also sympathetic. They had lost a lot in the last few hours and they were about to lose a lot more. Percival wanted to bring home as many of his marines as he could, and he couldn't do that if they were fighting each other, or if they were swallowed up by the hopelessness of their situation.

"All of us have lost something today," Percival started. "We're no strangers to loss - we are marines, but today we lost more than we were prepared to lose."

A few of the marines looked down and nodded. The faces of those they had lost came to the minds of each and every single marine. Carssen would never tell another of his famous jokes, Eugene had been about to become a father in three short months. Rahud had been halfway through an old book series that he had fallen in love with and now he'd never get to finish them. War didn't care and war didn't spare.

"We've lost friends… brothers… we lost a man who was like a father to us…" Percival continued.

Moisture began to form beneath his eyelids, which irritated Percival to no end. He angrily swiped a few fingers at it, only to grunt in exasperation as they came back again. His mind quickly flashed back to his last conversation with the captain back aboard the briefing room of the New York. He had known and he had _understood_ how Percival had felt about a certain Second Lieutenant. He hadn't berated him, hadn't chastised him – hadn't written him up for violating regulations. He had simply _understood._

"And we are going to lose more today, make no mistake about it. I wish it weren't true… I wish I could say that we won't lose anyone else today, but that would be a lie. It would be a lie because our fight is not finished. It would be a lie because we are _marines,"_ Percival said emphatically.

His marines around him nodded in solemn agreement. None of them were strangers to loss, but the fact that they hadn't lost anyone for quite some time had perhaps led them to temporarily forget one of the few, cold truths there were to being a marine. Several squads and a few officers from the other platoons in his company began to gather around to listen to the young marine lieutenant.

"Carssen, Eugene, Rahud, Dehlia, Kazuki, the captain… they died, yes, but don't forget that they died for the same reasons that all marines die – so that no one else has to! Remember that!" he roared at the assembled marines.

Percival pointed a finger up towards Slave Valley. "Remember that there are thousands of lives down there, waiting… counting on us!" he continued hoarsely. "Remember that your fellow marines gave their lives so that those down there might live!"

Almost half of the surviving company and several squads from the other companies had gathered now. Percival caught a glimpse of a familiar, beautiful face in the crowd of marines. Guinevere smiled up at him and for a moment Percival forgot all the pain and suffering he had just gone through. He felt invincible, unstoppable. He held up a gloved fist above his head and raised his voice even louder.

"Remember that the torch is ours now, to hold high and proud until it is our time to pass it on! Remember that those who are dead are not gone – not as long as those of us are still around to honor them! Remember that one day – when we join them once more, it'll be because we fought tooth and nail and to the last _breath_ against those who would hurt others!"

"You're goddamn right! Tell 'em, Lieutenant!" cheered Cormack.

"Remember that we are the fifth battalion of the one-hundred-and-fourth marine regiment, twenty-fifth division! Remember what they call us— they call us the "Last of the Last"! Remember that if we die today it will be because we died fighting for something worth dying for, alongside brothers and sisters worth dying with!

"Remember! _We are marines!"_ Percival finished.

The entire crowd erupted into cheers. Percival dropped his fist and gave a great big sigh that was lost in the wave of noise. He was not a good orator – not by a long-shot. As a child he had been small, timid. In high school he'd grown a lot bigger, but he never managed to shake that timidity. He often stuttered even while talking to his friends, let alone strangers. Despite his big, broad frame, Percival had always felt like that same awkward short, lanky child with messy blond hair.

But ever since he had found out his father had died, Percival had had to do some growing up. Pain was the greatest teacher there was, especially the sort of pain that often accompanied the loss of someone you loved. It could either destroy you, or it could force you to grow – to become something more. Percival had felt that pain once before already, and today he had felt it again upon seeing the broken body of his captain. He hadn't let the pain destroy him before, and wasn't about to let it destroy him now. He would always be that small, timid, stuttering child… but it wasn't _all_ that he was. He was a marine. He was a Systems Alliance marine lieutenant, responsible for dozens if not hundreds or thousands of lives.

He gently pushed his way through the throng of marines around him, all of them looking to pat him on the back or to shake his hand. Percival managed to make eye contact with his second-in-command. He jerked his head, indicating for James to follow, and together the two marines made their way out of the crowd.

"That was a damn fine speech, the teach you that at your fancy officer school?" chuckled James. Gunnery Chief James Fairchild gazed at his commanding officer with a mix of admiration and pride. He had come a long way from the green second lieutenant he had met two years ago, and James was looking forward to seeing the young marine continue what he hoped to be a long and distinguished career.

"Sadly no," Percival chuckled. "They did teach us how to do a really nice blanket tuck though."

The two of them walked side-by-side for a while, simply enjoying each other's company. Percival fished around in his pouches for an energy bar. He found one, unwrapped it, and then offered half to his friend. James took it and together they ate in silence.

"Who has command of the company now? Is it Miller?" James asked.

"It's Miller," Percival confirmed. "He says we're moving out at noon. Have the platoon rest up until then."

"Roger that," nodded James. The gunnery chief finished his half of the bar, swallowed, and then sighed. "I can't believe the captain's gone man… He seemed so untouchable."

Percival hooked both his hands onto the upper-lip of his chestplate and kicked at a rock.

"I know," Percival agreed. "His youngest is serving in the 18th right now, someone from the company ought to be the one to tell him…"

"Fuck this goddamn war," James cursed.

"Same, but this is Bahak. It all ends here, man. We take this valley and the slavers are done. We can all go home."

"Yeah, but how many more of us have to die before that happens?"

"As many as it takes," Percival said softly. His gaze went to the familiar silhouette of an approaching female marine. "Listen Fairy—James, get back to the men and make sure they're done fighting each other. If Ducky or Sterling are hurt, get them down to medical. I want everyone in top shape and ready to move out by noon."

The gunnery chief followed his gaze and recognized the newcomer. His face broke out in grin and he gave his friend a mock salute. "You've got it LT. Have fun." He turned around and headed back to where the platoon was camped, to give his friend and commanding officer some privacy.

Percival gave a small smile to his friend, then turned his attention back to the love of his life. Guinevere's hand darted out to give his hand a quick squeeze.

"That was quite the speech you gave there," Guinevere teased. Her other hand reached out to brush one of Percival's bangs out of his eyes. "I felt a little flutter in my stomach, and I think a few of the other female marines fell in love with you on the spot."

Percival didn't say a word. Instead he reached up, tenderly grabbed her hand and moved it down to his cheek. He closed his eyes and sighed, his mind going back to the last conversation he had ever had with his captain — the man who had been like a father to him.

"I'm sorry about your captain, love. I know how much he meant to you," Gwen whispered.

Percival nodded and opened his eyes. "He was a great man. I'm going to miss him."

"We're all going to miss him…" Gwen agreed.

Percival didn't reply. Instead he put an arm around her and pulled her close. In that moment he didn't care if there was a higher-ranking officer watching. All he cared about was that he was still alive, and that she was still alive, and about how he could keep it that way.

After a while, Percival looked down and took Gwen's face in both hands, tilting her head up so that she could see into his eyes.

"Gwen, listen. I want you to be safe out there."

Gwen scoffed softly and gently moved his hands away. "Safe? I'm a marine. Safe isn't exactly in the job description. Plus, we're just going to be watching your back. Nothing to be worried about, love."

Percival ignored her and grabbed her face again, more firmly this time. "I mean it. I know you're not one of the companies assigned to one of the facilities, but who knows what the batarians might have planned. Promise me you'll stay safe. Promise me."

"Percival, I can't possibly promise tha—"

" _Promise me_!" Percival whispered fiercely. "I can't, I just can't lose you, too."

Despite her best efforts to look reassuring, Guinevere couldn't help but let her concern slip through in the form of a slight frown. She had attended the same training academy and been in the same class as Percival before being assigned to the same battalion. Upon laying eyes on him for the first time, her first impression was that Percival was just another big, dumb, good-looking jock. As they had gotten to know each other better, she realized that she had been completely wrong. Percival was sweet, sensitive, and a big-brother figure to just about everyone. He was athletic, talented, smart, and the first to volunteer for any sort of training exercise – he was the perfect marine.

And in all that time of knowing him, Guinevere had never seen Percival look afraid. Sure, Percival had definitely _been_ afraid, but Guinevere had never seen him _show_ it. However, he was scared now. Guinevere could see it in his eyes. His usual warm, blue gaze now burned, as if someone had lit a fire in them.

Guinevere grabbed his hands one more time and squeezed them. "Lancelot, I promise… Semper Fi…"

Percival sighed in relief and looked down, doing his best to carve the sight of her hands in his into his memory. He prayed and prayed that it wouldn't be the last time he'd see her hands in his.

"Semper Fi," he whispered back.


	34. Chapter 34 - Search and Rescue

**Chapter 34 – Search and Rescue**

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 2039 hours —Alexandra Spaceport—Administrative Offices_

 _Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

 _Eight hours after taking the spaceport_

I dropped my helmet onto the floor beside my chair. It clattered and rolled a bit before I swiveled and stopped with my boot. I was thoroughly and utterly exhausted. My fellow Spectres and I had been leading search and rescue teams into Alexandra non-stop for the last eight hours. Outside, the gun-turrets that the Blue Suns had set up were firing non-stop. They and our sharpshooters had been working constantly to keep the fields around the spaceport clear of the creatures so that we could bring in survivors without issue.

A pair of protein bars flew at my face, but I was too tired to stop their trajectory. They smacked into my nose and dropped down onto my lap. I grunted in thanks and immediately tore the wrapper apart, taking a bite and chewing ravenously. Percival sat down on the chair across from me, his N7 armor covered in all sorts of interestingly-colored fluids and smelling like literal shit. My friend had led his last group of survivors through the sewers.

"Long day, huh?" he asked.

I chewed for a few moments before replying. "An understatement."

My friend nodded, then leaned forward and propped his elbows up on his knees. He ran both hands through his shock of blond hair, leaving behind bits of other interestingly-colored pieces that had been stuck to his gloves. I grimaced in disgust, but it didn't stop me from starting on my second protein bar.

"Alexandra has a population of what, two million? Maybe a quarter of the population is either dead or turned. We've got a couple thousand here in the spaceport and more already up in the ships. At this rate, it will take us a month just to get everyone in Alexandra out— and don't even get me started on New Thebes," my friend mused.

New Thebes was the capital of Anhur. It had a population of about ten million and was about an hour's drive from Alexandra. We hadn't heard anything from New Thebes despite the fact that we had re-established global communications earlier today. Thankfully, the other cities on Anhur were much further away, and so far they hadn't reported any infections.

"New Thebes is probably toast," I grunted. "You and I both know we can't get everyone off this planet – let alone this continent," I grunted.

I sighed as I finished my last protein bar, my stomach still rumbling. Biotics required a lot of energy to produce and as a result, we all had incredibly high metabolisms and needed a lot more calories than the standard soldier. I had been using my biotics nearly non-stop for the last eight hours, and it had taken its toll. I was still feeling ravenous despite all the calories I had just consumed.

"Agreed," Percival nodded. "We'll keep at it here, in Alexandra. The other cities are already taking defensive measures, but if we don't get a handle on these things nowhere will be safe."

The door to the administrative offices where Percival and I were resting then opened. In walked Cade, his armor looking like he had recently hosed it down, and Elektra close behind him. My eyes widened at the sight of the two plates of pasta Elektra had.

She took a moment to appraise the two wrappers I had left between my legs and then shoved the plate with the smaller amount of food into my hands. I didn't complain, instead I grunted in thanks once again and tucked in.

Elektra didn't reply, instead she sat down on the floor with her back against the wall and began shoveling pasta into her mouth at an alarming rate, foregoing her usual decorum. Like me, she too had been using her biotics almost non-stop.

Cade quickly snapped a quick video with his omni-tool of her with sauce smeared on her cheeks, eliciting a puffy scowl from the irate Spectre, and then took a seat beside Percival. Our two friends watched us eat with bemused looks on their faces.

"How did you get your hands on cooked pasta? I didn't see it when we did inventory," Percival asked.

Elektra swallowed and wiped her hand with the back of her mouth. "Private fridge, someone packed a lunch," she replied. "Used my wily, feminine charms to convince a few Jaegers to stop it from getting rationed out."

"The fact that you refer to them as "wily, feminine charms" speaks volumes about your self-esteem and your emotional stability," Cade said pointedly.

"My emotional stability is what saved you from getting torn apart by a horde of angry Corpsers back when we were taking the spaceport," she retorted.

"Whatever," Cade shrugged. "Percival, what's the plan? Are we going to be going out on one last sweep before we calling night?"

Percival looked at the time on his omni-tool and pondered for a moment. "Sun's going to set soon. I know we've got fancy night-vision as well as the Jaegers but I'm not sure that the Blue Suns all do. Most of the Anhur military most certainly doesn't."

"I don't exactly enjoy our chances in the dark with those things," Elektra shuddered. "Fighting them in the daylight is bad enough."

"You should have seen them when we were on the Hippocrates. The saboteurs knocked out the power for the first few hours and even when we managed to bring the back-up generators back on-line, we only had emergency lighting. Spirits, the whole ship was a horror cliché," Cade said.

"Are you trying to give me nightmares for the next few weeks."

"I was aiming for the next few months."

I swallowed the last of my pasta and then cleared my throat. "I don't think we have time for another. I'm not going to risk our lives fighting those things in the dark if we don't have to."

My friends nodded in agreement. None of us liked the idea of some poor civilian spending another night out there while those creatures prowled about, hunting, but it was just too risky to go out again. We couldn't help anyone if we were dead.

All of a sudden our comms. crackled to life. " _Cloud, its Val. Our comm suite just picked up a signal aimed at all our ships in orbit, you need to hear this."_

No rest for the weary. I immediately got up and made for the door. "Roger that, Val. We're headed for the operations room, patch it through to us in five."

Cade, Percival and Elektra followed closely behind. "Percival, radio Murgen and Accer. Raise the Ghar'arans as well and have them meet us there, we may need them," I ordered as an aside. My friend nodded and immediately went to work. A part of me was still hesitant about our uneasy alliance, but we didn't have the luxury of picking our friends right now.

" _Routing it down in five."_ Our pilot acknowledged. _"How's it going down there? Are you okay?"_

I looked around the spaceport. Everywhere I turned there were refugees. Some seemed catatonic or in shock – understandable given the situation. Others were doing a better job keeping it together. I spotted a group of four refugees nearby. One of them was a human female in a simple jumpsuit, while the other was a blonde human female in a battered law enforcement uniform marking her as part of the New Thebes Police Force, meaning at least some survivors had managed to find their way out of that silent city. With them were two small children – two girls, one batarian and one human.

"Auntie Emily, when are we going to leave?" the small batarian girl asked the female officer. The other child stood quietly and clung tightly to the leg of the other woman with a white-knuckled grip.

"Soon, sweetheart. The Jaegers are here, and they've been evacuating refugees non-stop. It'll be our turn soon," the New Theban constable promised.

A part of me was relieved that we had managed to save some lives today, but another part of me still couldn't forget that we hadn't been able to save anyone. "It's going good, Val. We've managed to rescue a lot of people. Did the Blue Suns give you a headcount of how many more people they can fit?"

" _Yes, I think they've got room for about two thousand more people, and the Ghar'arans have managed to find a temporary place for them on a nearby Terminus world under Blue Suns protection. It'll be a two-hour trip there, about another two to unload and refuel, and two-hours back."_

So we could maybe cycle five thousand people out of Alexandra every eight hours counting loading time, at peak capacity. We could do it in cycles. Half the ships would head to the sanctuary planet while the other half would remain here, where we could load survivors. They could then take turns ferrying them. It would put a lot of strain on their crews, but it had to be done.

"That's great, keep me updated and prepare to patch us through. We're almost at the operations room."

" _Roger."_

Captain Elias Murgen and Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton were already in the operations room, as were Revak and Malan Ghar'aran and Lieutenant Bastion Navarrian. A few communications officers who had originally worked at the spaceport and who had survived were seated at the consoles, monitoring communications traffic and some sensors we had rigged up.

The young biotic lieutenant waved his prosthetic hand in greeting. "Good to see you, man."

"Spectres," Captain Murgen nodded.

I nodded in reply to the two Jaeger officers and made my way over to where a communications officer sat at the main terminal, headset on and typing furiously. My friends followed suit, with Elektra shooting subtle, distrusting glances at the two batarian brothers.

"What news? Why are we here?" Malan growled. To both him and his older brothers credit, the two batarians had led non-stop rescue parties into Alexandra for the past eight hours as well.

"We're about to find out," I replied. "My Flight Lieutenant picked up a communication from someone somewhere on this planet. We're about to speak to them now."

Malan merely grunted in response and watched. Revak crossed his massive arms over his chest and remained silent, his two good eyes bearing intensely into one of the communications console.

The room was silent save for the rapid-typing of the comm officers. "Spectre, signal's established. We have communications," one of the officers finally reported. She pointed at a microphone beside her and gave me a thumbs-up.

I nodded and keyed the speaker on. Percival and Cade leaned in to listen while Elektra sat casually on another console, legs crossed and arms folded.

"This is Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud, who am I talking to?"

There was static at first, and then a high-pitched, somewhat nasally-voice male came onto the PA system. " _Cloud? What kind of name is Cloud, let alone 04-what-fucking-ever. Am I even speaking to a real Spectre? Because I asked that lady to speak to someone important, not to some damn robot."_

"What a prat…" Elektra quietly muttered. Percival and Murgen as well as the Blue Suns commanders weren't fazed in the slightest, but I could see Accer break out in a tiny grin and Cade's mandibles twitch in amusement.

I bit back a sigh. "Yes, I am a real Spectre, now why don't you tell us what you want and how we can help."

" _Finally, now you're speaking my language! First of all, it's not what I want—well, it is what I want—but more importantly, it's what I have that YOU want. Second of all, what I want is a goddamn evacuation, and fast!"_ the voice replied.

I was quickly beginning to get irritated, the man had very truly annoying voice. "Who am I talking to?" I asked.

" _Baird, Dennis Baird, and I've got information for you that you're going to want to hear."_

I ground my teeth together and bit back a scathing retort. For a guy who supposedly had little time to spare, he sure had a lot of time for theatrics.

"What information do you have, Dennis?" I replied.

" _Ha ha—nice try—and its "Baird", not "Dennis". I know you Spectre types. If I tell you everything you'll just leave me to rot. Rescue me first and then I'll talk."_

I cursed softly off-mic.

"Is this guy really doing this right now?" Cade asked incredulously.

"It is really tempting to let him die, information notwithstanding," Elektra added.

Revak Ghar'aran uncrossed his arms and gave my two fellow Spectres a vicious look, shutting them up quickly and effectively. They had both witnessed how he had dispatched that Corpser earlier today, and I guess it had left a lasting impression.

"Work with me here, Dennis. How do I know what you have is worth my while. There's a lot of people out there who need rescuing, what makes you so special?" I replied, elongating the words "a lot".

There was silence over the channel for a few moments, and for a second I was afraid that he had called my bluff and left, but he came back soon after.

" _I know where they are,"_ he replied. The chip in his voice had disappeared, and I could almost taste the fear in his voice. He was being straight with us now.

"Where 'who' are?" I asked.

More silence, then " _Them, the ones who started this,"_

"Who's "them", Dennis."

" _Oh for Christ—it's 'them'! N7, red-eyed split-chin turkey, crazy frog…. THEM! Stop fucking with me, man! And for the last time, it's Baird!"_

Accer's mechanical arm whirred slightly as he tensed up. "Shit, he knows where the saboteurs are…."

"One of them is an N7?" Lieutenant Navarrian asked.

I ignored them and pressed on. "OkBaird, give us your location. We're leaving immediately."

To their credit, none of my friends sighed in disappointment despite the fact that we had been fighting non-stop for the last twelve hours. This was our first major clue on the saboteurs since landing, and if it could give us even the smallest of chances to end this nightmare sooner and save more people, then we'd grab it with both hands.

" _Thanks. I'm in New Thebes—in a vault, tallest high and safe,"_ he said cryptically. " _Hurry, there's a group of split-chins in fancy armor hunting me. I've managed to avoid them for now, but I don't know for how much longer."_

"Sounds like more of those turian commandos," Cade pointed out. "But tallest high and safe? What does that mean?"

"I think he means Anhur's National Bank. Their slogan in all their holo-commercials is "high and safe", their vaults are in skyscrapers rather than underground," one of the communications officers replied.

"That is ridiculous," countered Elektra.

"Either you got the money down a hundred levels past dozens of security check-points, or you got it out by air, and Anhur's defense cannons would keep anything larger than a small shuttle from picking up the loot, it wouldn't be worth it," the officer shrugged.

I didn't debate the finer points of placing vaults. "Where's the highest bank building?" I asked the officer.

She typed a few lines into her console, then pulled up a map and highlighted a building in downtown New Thebes. "There, that's the tallest building that ANB has in New Thebes."

All of us studied it for a moment.

"Haven't we had no contact from anyone in New Thebes?" Murgen asked.

I nodded grimly. Every city had checked in except New Thebes, and we had all assumed the city was lost.

I brought my lips back to the mic. "Baird, you still there? Sit tight, we're coming to get you," I said.

" _Hurry, Please…"_ the informant whispered. His arrogant, angry tone had evaporated and the fear beneath had started to claw its way through. " _And be careful… there's things out there… things that come out at night and that weren't there before… I don't know what they look like – but they're fast, they're goddamn fast...I'll be waiting, Baird out."_

"Did anyone catch that part about those night-creatures? Are we really going to go now? At night?" Accer said nervously.

"Could they be the Chimeras you were talking about?" Elektra asked.

Percival, Cade and I all exchanged dark glances. None of us had forgotten those dangerous, intelligent monsters. It may very well be that Chimeras were running amok in New Thebes. Just because they weren't here, in Alexandra, didn't mean they hadn't been created by whatever had started this mess.

The big N7 rubbed his neck with a troubled expression on his face. "Maybe, maybe not. We haven't seen any around here yet, so it's possible… It also might also possibly be something new," Percival replied.

"Or maybe Jaelen's right, and these creatures are evolving," I mused. "Either way, we have to go get him. We need that information."

Revak pushed himself off the wall and unfurled himself to his full height. "We will go with you. We do not have any shuttles left, but we do have several Tomkahs," he thundered, referencing the large, rugged, four-wheeled armored vehicles designed by the krogan. It was a staple for dangerous combat zones, capable of surviving assaults that would destroy their lesser-armored cousins—the Mako or the Hammerhead. The Blue Suns had brought several of them to Anhur and we'd been using them to conduct rescue operations. They were capable of straight-up rolling over debris and traversing most terrain.

"Negative, I need you here. If those creatures attack at night or an emergency happens, you're the only one I trust to lead your men. Captain Murgen will stay too and coordinate the surviving Anhur military," I ordered sternly. I tensed up, ready for them to insist on accompanying us, but to my pleasure, Revak and his brother simply nodded in wordless assent.

"Who's going to be extracting Baird?" Cade asked.

"You, Elektra and I, as well as Accer and his squad. We'll be taking two of the Tomkahs."

"I'm going as well," Percival added. "I don't like the sound of those night-creatures, and I'm most definitely not staying behind while you guys risk your necks." The look in my friend's eyes said it was not up for debate.

"Okay," I agreed. "Everyone, grab what you need, meet me out in the tarmac in ten. Let's find Baird before those turians find him."

"Or those creatures," shuddered Elektra.

I nodded and waved a hand, dismissing the group. Cade, Elektra and Accer immediately jogged out to grab whatever they needed and so that Accer could brief his team, with Revak and Malan following soon after, presumably to coordinate the night-shift. Percival, Murgen and I all decided to stay behind.

"Carrying out a rescue op at night in a city full of rabid creatures is not going to be easy – not even for you," Captain Murgen mused. The veteran Jaeger had aged a lot in the last six weeks since the Hippocrates. His hair – once only slightly tinged with gray – had acquired a few more silver streaks, and it was starting to show in his beard, too.

"At least when we're fighting living beings, we can expect them to be fatigued, sluggish, and overall less alert during the night-cycle. These creatures seem to run full-steam twenty-four-seven—at least they did on the Hippocrates," Percival added.

"How experienced is Accer's team at stealth missions, Captain?" I asked.

The marine captain crossed his arms and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The Second Lieutenant and Gunnery Chief Teewin are two of my best men. We ran Gunnery Chief Kinzo and his marines through some basic training. They're passable, but they're inexperienced. We simply didn't have enough time to get them up to par with the average Jaeger. First Lieutenant Holt and Second Lieutenant Chang's Jaeger teams are more experienced at stealth rescue ops. You could take a few of their members instead – or even take some men from my squad," the captain offered.

"Except none of your Jaegers have the same tech aptitude as Specialist Croft," Percival pointed out. "Plus, aside from you and your squad this is the first time your other Jaeger teams have encountered these creatures. I think we should stick with Accer's team."

"Agreed. I have Camilla working on some bio-scanning software right now, thought it'd be useful when looking for civvies and avoiding these creatures. Hopefully it's done and we can have it on this mission," I said.

The Jaeger nodded. "Well, in any event, the Second Lieutenant may be a bit young but he scored very well on his stealth simulations, and the Gunnery Chief's one of my best and most experienced Jaegers. They'll do the trick."

"One more thing," he said. Murgen twisted around and pulled his M-8 Avenger from the back of his armor and thrust it into my chest. I grabbed it, hefted it, and sighted down the weapon. It was an older model, but was clearly well-maintained. It had a few kill counts on the stock that stopped somewhere around twenty, a modified red-dot sight attached to a rail at the top, and an enhanced barrel mod.

"Can't have you going up against those numerically-superior, fast-moving monstrosities with just two knives, a pistol and a goddamn _bolt-action_ sniper rifle, Spectre," the marine grunted. "It's just too damn embarrassing. I know the bolt-action is cool, but do us all a favor and bring a real weapon with you."

"I've been telling him that for years," chuckled Percival. "He has a Vindicator somewhere, but I think it's still up in the Excalibur."

"Hey, to be fair, the bad guys we're usually up against like to come at us in twos and threes. It's not my fault these things didn't get the memo," I said defensively. A Predator and my Snakebite had suited my needs just fine throughout my Spectre career. Whenever I needed a third, fast-firing weapon, usually one was provided or I just looted it from the dead. "Plus, I can usually find one when I need one."

"Borrowing a weapon or looting one from the dead don't count," Percival said, "It is not the same as maintaining, calibrating, and modding your own weapon. I've seen you bitch dozens of times about shoddy weapons calibrating."

"The El-Cee is right. You'll notice that Jenny over here isn't your ordinary Avenger. She's been calibrated to near-perfection, and I've loaded her up with inferno rounds". Murgen pointed at the weapon and glared sternly at me. "I want her back in one piece after your mission," he warned.

With that, the Jaeger captain turned and left, leaving Percival and I alone with the techs.

My friend held up a hand and gestured towards the door with a flourish. "Shall we?"

I clipped the Avenger to my back, right beside the Snakebite, and gave my friend a false-bow. "Of course, good sir."

Together we made our way out of the operations room and towards the tarmac where our vehicles awaited. A few of the refugees had already begun sleeping despite the constant cacophony of the defensive guns. We stepped past a squad of guards and made our way outside. In the distance, I could see the sun setting, giving the sky a purple-and-orange tinge. The dawn air was crisp and cool, and I couldn't help but think to myself that Anhur must have been a wonderful, stunning planet to live on.

"Beautiful," murmured Percival.

A loud shriek erupted somewhere far off in the distance, tearing the magic of the moment apart and reminding us of the reality of the situation that this planet and its inhabitants faced.

Cade and Elektra were already assembled at the two Tomkahs, as were Accer's Jaeger team. Rake, Soph, Fly and Jay were clad in the signature Jaeger armor – matte-black, angular armor-plates over a black undersuit, black helmets with narrow red visors, and the white knight insignia stamped on the shoulder.

Unlike back on the Hippocrates where each of them only had their standard-issue Avengers and Predator pistols, being a Jaeger came with load-out perks. Rake and Jay had both decided to stick to their old Avengers, but each had added a grenade-launcher mounted underneath. Soph had opted for a modified N7 Hurricane and had a much more powerful omni-tool strapped to her wrist. A combat drone could be seen attached to her upper-back. Fly had his medical rucksack on and was cradling a large N7 Crusader in his arms. Unlike its cousin, the M-27 Scimitar that both Elektra and Percival carried, the Crusader had could fire one less round before overheating but was more accurate. It was a good primary weapon for the corpsman, who typically preferred to pick his shots carefully and had the best aim out of the four marines. Accer had his old N7 Hurricane and his Predator while Teewin had once again opted for his modded Revenant. A Scimitar hung across his lower back similar to how Elektra kept hers and a Carnifex was strapped to the large Jaeger's thigh.

"Good to see you, Spectre!" Rake called out. "And thanks for thinking of us, we were afraid it was going to be another quiet night in."

"I for one would like some clarification on what the target meant about 'night-creatures', I felt like that was left a bit open-ended," Jay quipped.

I noticed Galen and Rayla standing off to the side, also armored and kitted. The asari commando managed to look bored and detached despite the dangerousness of the mission we were about to embark on — a nice little trick she had probably learned from all that time she had spent being a commando. I had been with her on a few rescue sweeps, and she had been admirably unfazed by the horrific nature of the creatures.

"We met up with Cade in the makeshift armory, said he had a mission he could use us on," Rayla explained. Galen nodded in agreement. The young turian looked a lot more relaxed and confident than he had been aboard the Hippocrates, but the way he tapped his foot betrayed just how nervous he actually was.

"I figure we could afford to up the party-size to twelve," Cade said. "The Tomkah's can seat six pretty comfortably anyways, and it'll be easier to split up into even fireteams."

"He actually asked Garm as well, but he said he'd probably have a better time with the batarians," Rayla grinned.

"Sure, sounds good," I agreed. "Cade, you and Percival take Rake, Fly, Rayla and Accer. I'll take Teewin, Soph, Galen, Elektra and Jay. Percival and I will be driving."

Percival gave me a thumbs-up. "Roger that, Spectre-in-command." My friend made his way over to the first Tomkah and pulled himself inside, the team that I had assigned to him following suit.

"We get the two Spectre biotics, sweet," Teewin exclaimed. My fellow Spectre flexed playfully in reply.

"Wait, does this mean I get to be shotgun?" Elektra asked.

I raised a hand and slapped her on the back, hard. "Just like old times," I grinned. My fellow Spectre smiled back and entered into the other Tomkah.

I followed behind her and pulled myself into the driver's seat, my nose wrinkling a bit at the smell. Interspersed with the smell of metal and leather was a layer of what could only be described as bad body odor. Whomever had been the last occupants must not have had particularly good hygiene.

"Oh god, these Blue Suns are disgusting," grimaced Elektra from the seat beside me. She began to flip on the navigation panel and enter in coordinates as I warmed up the engine.

Teewin poked his head between our two seats and smiled. "You know, I've got a bottle of thessian Irssal cologne in my pack if you want it," the gunnery chief offered, referencing the popular asari cologne with the highly erotic advertisements that touted it as an aphrodisiac.

Elektra smiled coyly and gently caressed the gunnery chief's cheek. "Thanks for the offer love, but it would be wasted on me."

"Suit yourself," the Jaeger said with a light shrug and a grin. He pulled back and took a set in the troop compartment, his massive revenant tucked between his legs.

"Why on earth did you pack that?" Soph exclaimed from beside him.

I ran one last systems check, then revved the engine. The Tomkah came to life with a throaty roar, emitting a plume of black smoke from the exhaust pipe in the rear. Few vehicles used fossil fuels nowadays. The Tomkah was a dinosaur in that regard, but I guess the Krogan couldn't be expected to bring every last bit of tech they had up to standard quite just yet.

I flipped a switch above me, patching into the communication channel set up between our two Tomkahs. "Percival, sound check."

" _Read you loud and clear, friend."_

"Great, let's move out. I want to get this done as quickly as possible."

" _Breakfast is going to be pancakes, plus I'd like to minimize the chances of us running into those things that Baird warned us about."_

"Yeah, they sound nasty," I agreed. "Ellie, can you patch the route in to the Tomkah's HUD?"

"You've got it, boss," Elektra replied.

A red line lit up on the screen ahead of me. Tomkah's didn't have transparent glass or synthetic-plastic windows for the drivers. Instead, cameras lined the exterior of the vehicle, projecting images of our surroundings onto a HUD on the domed, reinforced metal bulkhead used in lieu of windows.

I shifted gears and pressed my foot to the pedal. The Tomkah leapt to life and began trundling down the road towards New Thebes. Its brother did the same, following a few meters behind us. On the HUD in front of me I could see the last vestiges of this system's yellow dwarf star begin to dip below the horizon. A few stars had already emerged. Because of how close the Amun System was to several neighboring star systems, the stars in the Anhur sky were particularly bright.

"Beautiful…" whispered Elektra.

"Reminds me of that job we pulled on Sanctum, in Sigurd's Cradle," I reminisced. "That was quite the cluster too. Lots of systems close together."

"Oh yeah. The mark really had good taste in planets. And his house too, absolutely spectacular."

I nodded in agreement. I wonder where I would retire if I'd had as much money as that volus arms dealer had. Probably somewhere not as cold, but maybe somewhere a bit less crowded than the Citadel.

"Uh, excuse me, but where did we land on the night-creatures?" Jay complained.

* * *

 _March 14_ _th_ _, 2211, 2159 hours — New Thebes—Tomkah BSAV-01_

 _(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)_

 _Nighttime on the Outskirts of New Thebes_

I throttled down the Tomkah as we passed into the city proper. The sun had completely set now, bathing the city outside in darkness. The Tomkah had external floodlights but both Percival and I had opted to keep them off in case it attracted any unwanted attention or drew the saboteurs to our location. The Tomkah's cameras did have night-vision however, and so our HUD was filled with sickly-green images of the exterior. The city looked largely intact, but I could make out small columns of smoke rising from deeper in the city, and every now and then we passed a few dark, unmoving shapes lying on the road or on the streets.

I patched myself through to Percival's Tomkah and raised my friend. "Hey, Perc, you good?"

" _Nice and frosty. This city is surprisingly in one piece though…"_

"Yeah, it is… Perc, the city map shows that we can't just pull up in front of the tower. The entrance to its ground-floor is in the center of a large mall complex. We're going to need to make our way through it."

" _Yeah, I know. Probably for the best anyways, since we don't want to alert the saboteurs to Baird's exact location."_

"I don't exactly fancy taking a night-time stroll, either," Elektra said grimly from beside me. She vigilantly watched the HUD, looking for any signs of trouble.

" _What's the status of the bio-scanning software, has Camilla given us an update?"_

"Shit, I'll ask her now. Signing off."

I immediately switched to the Excalibur's engineering team channel. "Cam, its Cloud. You done with our little upgrade?"

" _Hey Cloud, thought you'd never ask!"_ came the engineer's reply. " _It was a bit tricky since software isn't my forte, but I managed to cobble something together."_

Both Elektra and my omni-tool lit up and a bar quickly appeared and filled up on its display. Elektra brought up the software and examined it.

" _It's not a real bio-scanner, just a jury-rigged friend-or-foe scanner. The Jaegers and anyone else with a Systems Alliance or Spectre ID should show up in green. Anyone else with a registered ID should show up yellow. Those without it should come up red. Should be good for up to fifteen meters, though I'd have Sophia double-check it just in case. She's probably better with this stuff than I am."_

I took my hands off the wheel, opened the program and looked at it. A small circle about eight inches in diameter came up. A green dot was in the center, another one to its immediate right, and four more scattered roughly behind it. A few centimeters back was another cluster of six, which represented Percival and his team. I tensed as I saw a few red dots flit by, just on the edge of the scanner.

"It's perfect, thanks."

" _No problem. You can't have it up on your omni-tool while you're stealthed, but you should already know that. You can link it to your HUD but it's going to take up most of it while its up – plus I know you don't like wearing your helmet,"_ the engineer warned.

"Roger that," I replied.

" _Okay, Cade told me what your current mission is. Good luck, and watch his scaly ass for me, por favor."_

"I will, don't you wo—"

A heavy thud interrupted me mid-sentence. Something had hit the side of the Tomkah. It was quickly followed by another, and then another.

" _Cloud, what was that?"_

"I don't know but I've got to go!" I whispered urgently. I immediately cut the channel and looked around the Tomkah's HUD furiously, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of movement. Nothing seemed out of place in the sickly-green picture

"I didn't see anything on the cameras!" hissed Elektra.

"What was that?" Jay called out nervously from behind us.

"Everybody stay quiet!" I ordered. I opened up another channel to Percival's Tomkah. "Percival, something hit us, did you see anything?"

" _What? We didn't notice anything,"_ came the reply.

"Keep your eyes peeled," I warned.

I slowed down my Tomkah until we were barely moving at a walking pace, Percival doing the same behind me. At this speed, the Tomkah barely made a sound as it rolled long despite its size and heavy plating. The entrance to the mall was just a few dozen meters ahead now. The night-vision on the Tomkah's cameras painted the towering bank above it in an ugly lime-green. We would have to exit soon.

"What the fuck was that," Elektra said fearfully.

"I have no idea, maybe a Corpser or even a Chimera. Either way, it must be gone now," I said, choosing not to bring up the fact that had it been either of those two things, we should have seen them.

We slowly rolled up a ramp into a skycar lot. It was about six floors tall and situated across a large street from the mall entrance. I didn't want to leave our Tomkah's out in the middle of the road and risk them being jacked or sabotaged.

Hundreds of skycars of every make and model were parked in neat little rows. Some had shattered windows or large dents. Many had mangled corpses nearby – bodies of those who must have been trying to take to the skies to escape the infection.

Percival and I parked our Tomkah's side-by-side in a couple of free spots. Elektra and I made our way to the exit. I pulled Murgen's Avenger from my back and slid my helmet over my head while Elektra did the same with her Scimitar. Teewin and Galen flanked the exit hatch, weapons at the ready, with Soph and Jay behind. All of them had their helmets on, allowing us to use our night-vision settings and to communicate silently. They all nodded at me.

I nodded in reply, then opened the hatch. I jumped out and landed onto the asphalt. My right boot came down on a patch of broken glass, causing a loud crunch that echoed in the cavernous skycar lot.

A skycar some distance away suddenly rocked as if something had hit it. I immediately pivoted and trained my Avenger in its direction, focusing intensely at that spot and trying to catch the slightest hint of movement. My heart echoed in my chest, loud against the deathly silence that draped over the skycar lot. Nothing.

After a few moments of waiting around, nothing else happened, and I waved the rest of my team down.

" _Mind the glass,"_ I warned.

Percival's Tomkah opened up and out came my fellow Spectres and the rest of their team.

" _Spirits, it's so quiet,"_ Cade whispered. The turian had his Vindicator out and was scanning the skycar lot.

" _Let's hope it stays that way,"_ Percival said grimly.

The Jaegers split up in pairs of two and took up positions on our flanks. Galen paired up with Rayla and stuck to the rear while Cade, Percival, Elektra and I all took point. We began to move towards the exit. We scanned between the parked skycars, eyes open for any sign of danger. I almost cried out a warning when a few small, fuzzy black spots popped up on my HUD, but I bit it back. It was likely just a small glitch in the night-vision tech, nothing to alarm everyone over.

Accer tensely twisted left and right as he kept watch for any sign of movement. " _None of the creatures have showed up, where could they all be?"_

" _What, are you feeling lonely or something?"_ Teewin chuckled.

" _Can the chatter, keep your ears peeled,"_ I ordered.

Soph and Jay both swallowed nervously. Fly and Rake seemed to take the whole situation in better than the two younger members. Rayla seemed solid and as did Galen. Percival was a rock as usual and I knew that as long as both him and I kept calm, Cade would as well. Elektra shivered as her eyes swept over several bodies. Cruel rends in their flesh the only evidence of what had killed them. Worse, some just had terrible bite-marks.

" _Strange that these bodies weren't changed,"_ Cade mused.

" _Yeah, I thought they only passed up turians and those too damaged to be converted,"_ I agreed.

" _Wait, what do you mean passing up turians?"_ Elektra asked.

Cade glanced down at the body of an asari female still in her first century. The night-vision gave the halo of blood around her a sickly look, making the dark-blue liquid appear as a menacing, shadowy pool. Aside from three massive lacerations in the chest, the rest of her body was intact.

" _Back on the Hippocrates, Changers and Crawlers would convert all of their victims into Corpsers, with two exceptions. One of them being bodies who had sustained too much structural damage – likely because they could no longer sustain the conversion process – and the other were turians. No matter what state we found turian bodies in, the creatures generally left them alone,"_ explained Fly. The corpsman quickly knelt down and examined the lacerations on the asari corpse. " _These were definitely caused by Corpsers, the width matches what I saw on the Hippocrates."_

He then turned to another corpse, this one a turian with half its neck torn apart. " _Tissue damage suggests Corpsers caused these wounds as well, but these look as if they've been caused by their teeth, not claws."_

" _Thanks, Corpsman,"_ shuddered Elektra.

We were on the third level approaching the second when suddenly we heard the sound of rapid footsteps and heavy breathing. It was coming from down the large street that separated the mall and the skycar lot.

I immediately moved to the edge of the skycar lot where I would have a visual of the street below, my friends following closely behind. I craned my head over the edge, Avenger at the ready, and looked down, sweeping the street below us. Everyone else followed suit, eyes peeled and breathing heavily.

" _There!"_ exclaimed Rayla. The asari commando raised a slim hand and pointed down the street.

About seventy-five meters away, a figure ran in a flat-footed sprint across the large, empty street. It was hard to tell with the night-vision, but it appeared to be a human male in civilian clothing.

We watched as a shadowy figure came out of nowhere some distance behind him, keeping low to the ground and moving fast on what looked like four limbs. I couldn't make its features out. It caught up to him just moments before the civilian could reach the other side of the street and pounced on him.

The human male went down with a scream. I winced as the civilian grabbed desperately at a nearby lamp-post as whatever had caught him began to drag him behind a nearby building. I could feel my whole team tense up in horror as several more shadowy figures silently raced towards the hapless victim.

Eventually the screams stopped just as the poor civvy was dragged behind a large building. Whatever had taken him had been too fast it had been too dark for me to see clearly what it had been. I grasped my Avenger in a white-knuckled grip and pressed the stock firmly into my shoulder, in shock at what I had just seen. Was it a Chimera?

" _Spirits,"_ whispered Cade.

" _What the actual fuck was that,"_ Jay breathed. The small marine trembled and pressed an armored fist against the lip of his helmet, unable to comprehend what he had just seen.

" _Did anyone get a good look at what those were?"_

" _No, they were so fucking fast—"_

" _Fuck! Fucking hell we should leave and come back in the morning!"_

" _Everyone, just stay calm!"_

" _Shut up!"_ I hissed furiously. " _Whatever those things are, they're long gone. We need to find Baird and get the hell out of here before the turians find him or before those things find us, got it?"_

Everyone quieted down and slowly we got back into formation, but whereas the air around us had been heavy with only silence and anxiety earlier, now it was electrically-charged as tensions ran high and the fear became so dense you could almost taste it. And it wasn't the marines too. Elektra had already been afraid, butnow she was walking so close to me she was quite nearly pressed against me. Both Cade and Percival were swiveling and checking between the skycars more frequently than before, and even Rayla had begun moving with more purpose and caution.

Jay suddenly tripped on a body, having been too preoccupied with watching his surroundings. He went down with a muffled grunt and his Avenger dropped to the ground in front of him with a loud clatter.

I watched in horror as a shadowy figure materialized on top a skycar right beside him and pounced onto the Jaeger, bringing him down face-first onto the asphalt. Soph beside him gave a frightened shout and fired a panicked burst into the air above it that missed. Another creature slammed into her from the side and she went down with another shout.

I reacted first among my friends, pointing my Avenger at the creature currently on top of Jay. The creature was slightly ephemeral, almost as if it was flickering in and out of existence. It made it hard for me to make out its features clearly, especially with the night-vision active. From what little I could make out, it was mostly black and I could see metal spikes coming out of its back like a row of fins. It was similar in size to the smaller Chimeras we had fought in the biology lab aboard the Hippocrates – roughly that of Earth's cheetahs or leopards, but whereas the Chimeras were sinuous and had long tails that made up more than half of their length, these creatures however were more squat and had short, stubby black tails.

I fired a burst into its flank, the inferno rounds slamming into its side and knocking it off the struggling marine. It quickly scrabbled to its feet and dove out of sight between a row of skycars before I could finish it off.

Percival had lifted a heavy boot and launched a heavy kick at the creature currently astride Soph and grabbing at the specialist. It connected with it and knocked it off the small Jaeger, where Percival fired a burst at it with his own Avenger. The creature let loose a ghastly howl that sounded more animal-like than that of a Corpser and pulled itself away, blood flying everywhere.

We all blinked in surprise when it suddenly disappeared right before our very eyes.

Cade immediately pulled both Soph and Jay to their feet, his Vindicator rifle poised and scanning the lot furiously. Both the Jaegers didn't seem to be hurt, merely stunned.

" _There_!" Galen called out. He pointed at an empty spot in front of us.

I was the first to notice what had drawn the young turians attention. A few drops of blood seemingly materialized out of thin air to fall onto the asphalt, forming a trail that lead to where Percival had first shot at the creature. The space slightly above the ground was slightly distorted, not unlike that of a tactical cloak.

I fired a long burst at where he had pointed. A black shape shimmered into existence and howled once again. I fired half the clip into the thing before it finally keeled over and died.

" _They're somehow stealthed_!" I roared.

Elektra gave a warning shout and I felt something slam into me from behind, knocking me to the ground. In the corner of my eye I saw Percival struggling with his own attacker.

I quickly rolled onto my back just in time to bring my arm up between me and a pair of slavering, teeth-filled jaws. I starred up into the face of something that had once been clearly human. I could see the long, tangled black hair of the original victim. Unlike Corpsers or Changers, the eyes were very human and slightly deformed, emitting a weak blue light that looked pitch-black under my night-vision. Like their Corpser cousins, they had that characteristic, gaping maw filled with metal and organic teeth which it was currently trying to use to take off a part of my helmet.

I grabbed one of my knives from the small of my back with my free hand. Adrenaline flooded my system and I quickly drove my Talon knife into a gap of exposed, sickly-blue flesh, right beneath its neck, jabbing once, then twice, and then a third time. The creature had what looked suspiciously like the black armor that the saboteurs had been wearing aboard the Hippocrates melded into its flesh, but patches of exposed skin could be seen here and there, revealing swathes of formerly-human skin, synthetic cabling and odd, bone-like plating around its head.

The creature howled in pain and to my surprise and horror it grabbed my wrist with a very-human hand and tried to pry it away. A loud gunshot barked nearby and its head flew apart in a gory mess, utterly showering my helmet in blue blood and cutting my kinetic barriers in half due to how close the shot had been.

I pushed the twitching corpse aside and pushed myself to my feet, blindly groping around since my visor was covered in the creatures fluids. I felt my Avenger getting shoved into my hands.

" _Get up! They're everywhere!"_ Elektra shouted. My friend fired two more rounds into the twitching creature.

My heart was pounding, beating at a mile a minute. I brought a hand up to wipe the blood off but was unsuccessful in clearing my sight. I snarled in frustration and unclasped my helmet, dropping it to the ground. I was rigid with fear as I waited for my eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, terrified that at any moment I would be attacked again.

I could see blurry shapes streak back and forth among my friends, interspersed with some muzzle flash that was not helping my eyes acclimate to the darkness.

I thumbed on the flashlight attachment on my Avenger, illuminating Percival struggling with one of the creatures that had wrapped its hind-legs around his waist and was grabbing him tightly around his shoulders, trying to take a chunk out of the N7's neck.

The beam of light hit the creature, causing it to snarl and recoil in pain. It let go of Percival's shoulders and brought its hands up to block the light, allowing my friend to rip it off and throw it some distance away. It collided against a skycar with a loud bang, and a few of its friends immediately charged at it, snarling and snapping.

The creatures' reaction to the light had not gone unnoticed. Elektra and Cade immediately turned on their flashlights as well and began blinding the creatures. Accer and Teewin followed suit. The creatures hissed and withdrew from the light, backing away and allowing the rest of the Jaeger team to draw a bead on them.

The light painted them in all their hideousness, though for some reason they still seemed to flicker in and out of existence. Like the one I had gotten a close look of, all of them seemed to be former humans and all seemed to have black combat armor embedded into their flesh. I could see the residual facial and physical features of the original hosts, warped as they were by the transformations. The creatures walked on all fours like giant dogs, with their forelimbs retaining very-human hands. Their legs were warped and twisted, becoming digitigrade. They had odd, bone-like growths atop their heads like plating, and what flesh was visible between the armor was sickly-blue and rife with small cables. They all had small, stubby tails and of course, that horrendous mouth.

Our weapons were relatively ineffective and the creatures were fast. They didn't stick around, but instead quickly ran away. Two of them stopped to help the creature that Percival threw rise to its feet and together the entire pack ran off, leaving my team alone and in the dark.

I held up a finger to my mouth, indicating for my team to keep quiet. Percival caught on quickly, as did Cade and Elektra, and soon the message was passed on to everyone else. We all pulled up in a rough circle with our weapons out and our backs towards each other, eyes warily watching for any sign that the creatures had returned.

I padded quietly over to where I dropped my helmet and silently picked it up, wiping it clean and slipping it back on over my head and sealing it with a hiss.

" _What the fuck WERE those things?!"_ Teewin whispered mutedly over the big marine anxiously panned his Revenant left and right, open and alert for even the slightest hint of movement.

" _Those were probably the fucking night creatures! I fucking told you they'd be out here!"_ Jay exclaimed. " _None of you gave a shit what they were then, I bet you give a shit now!_ "

" _I've never seen anything like them before. Did anyone else notice that they were all former humans?"_ Rayla added.

" _Everyone stay quiet,"_ I ordered. I pulled up the bio-scanners that Camilla had created and breathed a sigh of relief. We were alone.

" _Those things, I think they're attracted to sound,"_ I continued. " _They didn't attack until Jay accidentally dropped his rifle, and several of them peeled off when Percival hurled one into a car, so stay quiet. Is anyone hurt?"_

" _No, we're all good,"_ Accer replied.

" _Seems like they're not too fond of bright lights, too,"_ Percival pointed out. " _That'll be useful."_

" _Did anyone kill one other than Elektra and I?"_ I asked.

Cade shook his head and glanced at the creature Elektra had killed. It was missing half its head, and blue-ish blood was slowly congealing around the terrible wound. " _No, those things are well-armored and fast – could barely land half my shots."_

" _They were all wearing the same armor the saboteurs were wearing on the Hippocrates,"_ Galen quipped. The young turian silently padded over to the body and began fumbling around the armored portions of the creature. After a few moments he grunted in satisfaction. We watched as the body suddenly disappeared with the tell-tale crackle that tactical cloaks made.

" _That explains why we could barely see them,"_ muttered Elektra. " _They're practically invisible if they're standing still, and half-visible when they're on the move. We can't see them until they're practically on top of us."_

I cast back into my mind, recalling the skycar I had seen rocking when I had first exited the Tomkah, then back to when I had seen those fuzzy distortions. " _That seems to fit. Whatever these creatures are, they can stealth, probably because of the armor,"_ I mused.

" _How are we supposed to fight these things?"_ shuddered Soph. The young specialist had very nearly been killed by one of the creatures while trying to help Jay, only the timely intervention of Percival had prevented her from having her head bitten off.

" _We don't,"_ I announced. " _We stay quiet and we don't attract their attention and if we have to, we use our flashlights. We grab Baird and then we get the hell out of here."_

Without further ado Ichecked the charge on my Avenger and then quietly made for skycar lot's exit, doing my best to project an air of confidence and assurance. We were lucky that we hadn't attracted the attention of a horde of Corpsers or Changers during our firefight. For all we knew we might have, and the creatures were just regrouping. That was why we had to get to the tower asap and complete our mission, before things got too crowded.

My team followed suit. We eventually made it out of the skycar lot and into the street below without any more trouble.

I was the first one across the street, the rest of my team covering my advance. The city was still deathly quiet, like a fresh corpse.

I took up position behind a bench just outside the mall entrance and covered the rest of my team as they made their way across. Elektra crouched down beside me while the Jaegers split up to cover both sides of the street. Cade knelt down in front of the door and began to unlock it, with Percival, Rayla and Galen all covering him.

" _It's open."_ My friend reported. He gently slid open the doors, revealing the darkness within the mall that the starlight from the night sky above was unable to penetrate. The turian Spectre brought his rifle up and with a small breath, stepped inside. Percival and the two specialists silently followed.

I waved for the Jaegers to follow them. They nodded and filed in one-by-one into the darkness of the mall, Accer in the lead. This left just Elektra and I outside.

Somewhere in the distance a creature snarled. I set a hand reassuringly on Elektra's shoulder and gestured for her to go inside.

She did, and after giving the street one last sweep I did so as well, sealing the doors behind me with a simple lock and immersing us in darkness.


End file.
